South Chennai to get sponge parks, eco park and turf

Chennai: Greater Chennai Corporation is setting up two sponge parks in Sholinganallur, apart from a football turf and an eco-park beside a lake, at an outlay of 2.78 crore by Nov. The city currently has 59 sponge parks.

Sponge parks refer to green spaces with pond-like structures that take in water from neighbouring rainwater harvesting systems via pipes and are meant to help prevent localised flooding and boost groundwater recharge.

In Sholinganallur, the sponge parks will be established on Sathyavanimuthu Street (near the Infosys campus) and near the 1,500 unit-TNHB (Tamil Nadu Housing Board) apartment complex at 78 lakh under the Namakku Naame Thittam (NNT) by Environmentalist Foundation of India (EFI), an NGO that takes up waterbody restoration.

EFI is also restoring the Ramanthangal lake under the scheme for 1 crore. “We will enhance the lake’s storage capacity, strengthen its bunds, create nesting islands for boosting biodiversity such as supporting birds, and build an eco park on its embankments,” said EFI founder Arun Krishnamurthi. .

The eco park will be a no-concrete space except for a compound wall and toilets for members of the public to use.

There will be a bamboo garden and eco-trail with flowering plants that are expected to attract bees, butterflies and other pollinating organisms.

“Lighting, earthen surfaces, footpaths and seating areas will also be created,” said a Greater Chennai Corporation official.

Srikanth K, a resident of Model School Road in Sholinganallur, said the exisiting footpaths around the lake are broken.

“EFI shares 51% of the cost of projects and the rest is being shared by GCC. And, we are executing them,” said Arun Krishnamurthi.

Lauding the initiative, hydrogeologist J Saravanan said shallow aquifers are the main source of groundwater in areas such as Sholinganallur, which are close to the Pallikaranai marshland and the Buckingham Canal.

“The deep aquifers have saline water. Such sponge parks will increase water recharge in the shallow aquifers,” he said.

A football turf is also in the works at the Govt School ground on Model School Road in Sholinganallur at an estimated 1 crore, a senior officials of GCC said.

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