How Chennai’s Global Ambitions Collide with the Annual Flood Spectacle

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I am delighted to end 2024 for TCE with this piece by G Ananthakrishnan, a senior journalist formerly with The Hindu and Indian Express — an overview of our beloved city’s civic performance and what lies ahead. Happy reading! 

How Chennai’s Global Ambitions Collide with the Annual Flood Spectacle

The annual spectacle of heavy rain and flood is forging Chennai’s identity as an emerging global metropolis. The unprecedented deluge of 2015 hit international headlines, and the flood phenomenon has since become a feared annual spectacle, accompanying the annual northeast monsoon events between September and December. 2024 was no different.

City’s Achievements

Before diving into our city’s core concerns, let’s look at its major accomplishments.

Business:

1. This year, Memoranda of Understanding were forged with Ford Motors, TN Guidance and Google for an AI lab; Equipment Manufacturer Caterpillar; and Power management company Eaton for an R&D centre.

2. There are expectations that many more Global Capability Centres (GCCs) will open, boosting the present base of over 250.

3. In regards to investments, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s visit to the US during the year is valued at ₹7,600 crore.

Infra:

1. Stalin recently highlighted all the flyovers that were built, starting with the Anna flyover, and some parks (the newer ones charge for entry).

2. Another achievement is the conversion of the Guindy Race Course into a public space hosting an urban wetland.

Yet, public memory — and the household budget — is increasingly shaped by the regular annual flooding of residential and even industrial areas.

Cyclones over the years

Cyclones Vardah (2016), Ockhi (2017), Gajah (2018), Nivar (2020) and very heavy rainfall without extreme events in 2021 sounded the alarm. Cyclone Michaung caused another severe flood in December 2023.

In 2024, the impact of Cyclone Fengal is all too fresh. Although there has been a slight decrease in cyclone formation over the Bay of Bengal in recent times (and an increase in the Arabian Sea), tropical storm systems promise to be a continuing reality for Tamil Nadu.

The question before the civic authorities is whether Chennai can continue to remain a fair-weather metropolis when it has global ambitions:

• It is building a nearly ₹63,246 crore extension of the Chennai Metro in Phase 2, has a large service sector including health tourism, and has shown a trend of rising real estate prices.

How do floods impact the real estate market?

The inner city properties advertised in Chennai show a trend towards larger apartments attracting high-income buyers, and there is a sharp deficit in affordable housing, which combine to raise rents and produce severe sprawl in the neighbouring districts of Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu and Thiruvallur.

A Reuters report identifies this trend nationally. Many older properties in Chennai are in the process of being rebuilt into new apartments in core areas such as Kodambakkam, Choolaimedu, Nungambakkam, Kilpauk and Adyar, with advertised prices of between ₹13,000 and ₹20,000 per sq ft for upper-middle-class apartments with aggregate prices that run into a few crore rupees per unit.

Against this background, the expectations from the post-Karunanidhi DMK government headed by Stalin in 2021 were high. It was forced to address the massive disruption caused by the monsoon flood that year.

What did the Thiruppugazh panel report say?

The Thiruppugazh Committee led by a former IAS officer was set up to get to the bottom of the crisis. A massive drain-building programme, for which the Greater Chennai Corporation allocated ₹1,235 crore in 2022, was launched. It has not performed perfectly.

Yet, as the retired Madras High Court judge K. Chandru lamented in an opinion article, the State government did not release the Thiruppugazh panel report to the public. It rejected RTI requests, including one by this author, for its release.

Meanwhile, important policy perspectives such as the Third Master Plan of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (the next iteration of the Comprehensive Mobility Plan) — critical for addressing climate challenges and resource scarcity — are also at the formative stage.

Crucial Problems to Address

• Localities in the Greater Chennai Corporation, Tambaram and Avadi Corporations, Porur, and Mangadu among a dozen municipalities and several town panchayats in transition are annually marooned.

The key driver of the city economy, which is mobility provided by MTC buses, Chennai Metro and suburban railway, has major policy gaps:

1. The MTC fleet remains virtually static at about 3,500 buses, and the Government is still struggling with reforms such as digital ticketing, integrated passes with Metro and railways, and replacing ageing buses with modern low-floor, disabled-friendly fleets.

2. The Metro Phase 2 expansion at scale is still at least two or three years away. There is no service delivery law for citizens, promised by the DMK in its 2021 manifesto.

The city has only five years left to meet some universal targets under the Sustainable Development Goals, 2030. Goal 11 enjoins governments to ‘make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable’.

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