Social media sometimes does give sound advice. A couple of days ago, someone had asked friends to go check the real estate, which they planned to buy just after the rain, to find out the level of flooding. A piece of advice that holds water for all the properties off Rajiv Gandhi Salai, where investments have never gone hand in hand with infrastructure development.
Places such as Sholinganallur, Semmancheri, Navalur, and Siruseri that are at the heart of the city’s information technology hub lack good infrastructure. “When these properties were purchased, people paid development charges to the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) hoping that they would get good roads, street lights, drinking water supply and sewers. At least half of these areas that were with small panchayats once were handed over to the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC). After it took over, we have been paying property and water taxes — to no avail. The various laws mandate the GCC to direct Tangedco to disconnect power connections if property owners do not pay taxes. We still depend on water tankers and sewage lorries,” says Harsha Koda, co-founder, Federation of OMR Residents Associations.
Bad interior roads
Many interior roads are in a bad condition: they have no lights and have not been relaid for some years. Snakes slither across the roads at many localities. At Perumbakkam, which is next to Sholinganallur, residents say one will not know where one pothole ends and another begins. Sreekanth, a resident, says it has been several years since roads were relaid in his locality. “At times, the water tankers fill the large potholes with rubble. The local body says it does not have any money,” he says. Chengalpattu.
Estimates show that on the stretch between Sholinganallur and Thiruporur, there are over 40,000 housing units in apartment complexes, without counting individual homes or plots developed into houses.
Seetha Suresh, who came to Thoraipakkam in 1993, says the Information Technology Corridor was known as Old Mahabalipuram Road at that time. “There were so many empty plots then. Agricultural activities would be carried out regularly, and the population was limited to Chennaiites moving to the suburbs for peace and quiet and because the plots were still affordable. With the information technology boom, large buildings came up all along this road all of a sudden. Apartment complexes came up to feed the companies with workers. And there began the sad saga of open land getting built over, channels getting filled up and tanks and lakes vanishing. I remember a community well and two ponds were filled up near the PTC Quarters when the road was widened. Many more were lost to development. All this indiscriminate development has led to residential areas and even the main road getting flooded each time it rains,” she says.
Fishing in open land
During the rain brought on by cyclone Michaung, areas that had never been flooded before got submerged. The areas that were prone to flooding were badly affected. Places like Classic Farms in ward 199 of the Greater Chennai Corporation, apartments near the salt pans of Thiruporur, Thazhambur remained flooded for several days. At Thazhambur, during every monsoon, the local population turns up to fish on open land that are catchments, but have mostly been made into plots marked out with concrete poles. If one drives along the internal road that connects Navalur and other areas and also the link road between Thiruporur and East Coast Road, they can see men and children happily fishing in the floodwaters.
At Semmancheri, the floodwaters were used by Tsunami Quarters residents to swim, bathe, and wash clothes and utensils. Leelananda Neeli, a resident of DLF City at Semmancheri, says this was the first time the water entered the community. “I live on the 8th floor and carried a water can all the way up since we ran out of water when the power went out. I shudder to think what happened to people on the 20th floor. Our car park got filled up. Open spaces around the complex easily got more water than the 2015 floods. I had just moved into my house then and thought it was a one-time thing. Only after several monsoons and floods did I realise that this was not the case. The quantity of water we got this time was much more than we have ever had. A macro canal constructed near our community could not take that much water,” he says.
When it rains, Rajiv Gandhi Salai turns into a macro canal as the storm water drains constructed along the road are unable to take in a huge quantity of water. It gets flooded, bringing traffic to a halt. K. Sivaraman, of Thiruporur and one who understands the real estate scenario on Old Mahabalipuram Road, says the local bodies were unable to catch up with the pace of development. The Greater Chennai Corporation, too, is unable to do anything for want of funds and lack of planning. “These places face the same issues as houses and offices in the core city. The government should come out with a special scheme to lay sewer/water lines for residents at places off Old Mahabalipuram Road that have narrow streets. Otherwise, many areas won’t get sewer and water lines. The CMDA should start putting in required infrastructure now in the emerging areas,” he says.
More vehicles on the road
Meanwhile, for residents, who successfully made the government to remove the toll plaza at Navalur that bought long queues, the IT Corridor’s traffic woes worsen every day. The road carries over one lakh vehicles a day and the Metro Rail work only leads to more snarls. New residential buildings are adding to the vehicle population.
“The State government needs to lay a road parallel to Old Mahabalipuram Road to help reduce congestion. It could run along the Buckingham Canal. Unless this is done, in a few years, vehicles won’t have space to even move. Grid roads, too, need to be laid for segregating the local traffic. The government should also speed up the construction of the four flyovers on Old Mahabalipuram Road at junctions. This is a 15-year-old promise. Only this year has the government allocated ₹50 crore in payment to Chennai Metro Rail Limited, which will build the flyovers. We hope they will stick to the time line,” says Bala, who commutes to Rajiv Gandhi Salai daily.
Residents can only hope against hope that whatever ails Old Mahabalipuram Road will be checked and treated to make life better for them.
