Normalcy restored in 95% of Chennai: chief secretary

CHENNAI: Chief secretary Shiv Das Meena on Thursday tried to bring some cheer in the wake of a devastating cyclone, saying 95% normalcy has returned to Chennai city thanks to the elaborate relief and rescue operations by the administration.
Listing out efforts taken on various fronts, the officer said 18,750 people were shifted to government-run relief camps in four districts on Thursday and IAF helicopters continued to airdrop food packets in the affected areas of south Chennai.The 34 teams of SDRF and NDRF consisting of 850 personnel continued to assist the rescue operation, he said.
The state horticulture and cooperative departments on Thursday operated 50 mobile vehicles for sale of vegetables, and would operate 150 mobile vehicles to sell milk and vegetables in the flood-affected areas of Chennai from Friday.
“Power supply is yet to be restored only in 77 out of 17,704 distribution transformers (DTs) in Chennai, and 578 out of 27,371 DTs in Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu and Tiruvallur districts. All high-tension lines and substations are functional. All DTs will be restored by tomorrow,” he said, adding that the storm water drain network built in the last two years in Chennai city supported flood mitigation in several areas.
Meena said Tangedco, health and police departments, fire and rescue services and the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) sourced 9,000 staff members from other districts to assist their counterparts in Chennai and neighbouring districts. The GCC opened 20 subways for traffic and efforts were on to open Vyasarpadi and Cochrane Basin Road subways by Thursday night. The GCC has been using 1,500 pump sets round-the-clock for dewatering the localities in Chennai, while 120 pump sets were in use in other districts, including 30 high-capacity pumps sourced from Gujarat. “Only 39 bus route roads in Chennai are still under a sheet of water but there is no traffic issue,” the officer said.
The chief secretary said milk supply almost hit normalcy with Aavin stepping up supply to 14 lakh litres and private suppliers 8 lakh litres in Chennai. The metrowater mobilised 433 tankers and made 4,500 trips to supply drinking water on Thursday. He said the state government would make a detailed assessment of the damages after flood water was drained out completely. The administration supplied three lakh food packets for breakfast, lunch and dinner, 70,000 bread packets, 4.25 lakh water bottles, 6.32 lakh biscuits and 34,789 packets of milk powder to the flood affected people.