The torrential rains that lashed the southern T.N. districts recently also damaged a number of facilities and buildings, particularly government offices. It may take up to a year to fix the damage that these buildings have sustained, sources said.
According to official records, 1,819 government buildings in the region were damaged in the rain causing a huge loss of government records.
While the Thoothukudi district Collectorate sustained a lot of damage due to the water that flowed inside the premises, many government offices in rural areas that were operating out of buildings in low-lying areas lost all the records that they had maintained and stored. In addition to this, police stations too, were affected in the rain. Computers, printers and other devices as well as case registers have become completely unusable.
A revenue official in the Eral taluk said, almost every document stored at their taluk office was either washed away or damaged and the computers too, where important records were stored, were damaged.
Explaining the situation, the official said, finding residents through the records to provide relief assistance has itself become challenging owing to the dysfunctional computers. “To save the few remaining documents, we have placed the papers under the sun to dry. Officials and staff all had to work outside the office, as the office has also been damaged,” the official said.
As the rains began on a Sunday (December 17, 2023) not many documents could be saved. “Even as a precautionary measure we couldn’t do anything as there were no staff members present to relocate the files,” the official said. Though the records have been uploaded onto a server that can be accessed and then retrieved, officials are still grappling to figure out what has been lost and what remains.
Similarly, many offices in Srivaikunatam have also faced damage, with documents and electronic devices damaged. Three police stations in Thoothukudi district: Megnanapuram police station, Eral police station and Thoothukudi south police station have faced extensive damage.
At Eral and Thoothukudi south police stations which were completely submerged, records and computers are both lost. At the Megnanapuram police station, the police personnel managed to safeguard most of the documents by moving them to the top floor of the building.
A police official at Eral police station said that as the station had only one floor, they were not able to move the files. “Though we were present at the station, we could not do anything once the Tamirabharani river breached and the waters entered the village,” he said.
“We ourselves were on the terrace, under the rain, attempting to protect ourselves. Protecting the files and computers at that time was unimaginable,” the official said. According to him, the station had records dating from 2000 till 2023, which have all been damaged.
A senior district police official said, “To retrieve the documents and crime records, we are working together with the judiciary. As the district Court would have the records of the cases, we can source it from them.” In addition to this, the Crime and Criminal Tracking Systems and Networks where the records have been stored would be used to trace the data, the official added.
T.N. Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu, speaking to The Hindu about the restoration work that will be carried out in the district, said, “The damage is extensive and only ad hoc restorations are being done with the funds available with the respective departments at the moment.” Once the detailed assessments are completed, he said, they would arrive at an estimation of how much money is required to rectify all the damage.
