In the future, Sholinganallur in southern Chennai would be home for 2 sponge parks and 7 ponds!!
It is brought out that the residents in Sholinganallur would be able to get improved groundwater supply plus there would also be minimum flooding etc. Sounds incredible right!!
The move has been appreciated by the residents here but they want proper fencing around the water bodies to prevent the public from dumping garbage etc. The blue infra must be planned methodically and scientifically and this was according to some rainwater experts.
As per an officer from Chennai Corporation, 2 parks in semmencherry present on the Anna Street and on the Bharathi Street would be developed as sponge parks. He spoke about how ponds with bunds would be developed inside these upcoming sponga parks and the parks would have proper fencing also. To filter and save the runoffs, ponds would be made of many layers like gravel, sand and biofilters etc.
The chief engineer of GCC, Mr. S. Rajendran mentioned that around the ponds rain gardens with native plants and grass would be developed to capture runoffs from parking areas, driveway etc. He hinted that the plants would naturally purify the water.
The superb piece of information is that as manya s 7 ponds would be coming up in places like Uthandi, Semmenchery and Injambakkam and these ponds would be of sizes between 340 sqm and 7000 sqm. Point is that the ponds would act as aquifers to the nearby places by recharging the groundwater table.