The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Madurai News : Does it stand a chance of clean environment?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 14, 2004

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Madurai

Does it stand a chance of clean environment?

By S. Sundar

MADURAI, SEPT. 13. All is not well with the Mattuthavani integrated bus stand.

Official apathy and non-cooperation by shopkeepers have rendered the whole bus stand stinking, and it is passengers who bear the brunt.

Encroachments on the corridors by flower-vendors and shopkeepers, who spread out eatables and paraphernalia, is unabated, even as passengers are hard put to it to negotiate their way to the bays.

Besides eating into the walker's space by displaying eatables — from snacks to meals and flowers to fruits — the shopkeepers dump their waste on the bays that reek with foul odour. "While the Corporation has allowed only mobile flower-vendors, 80 of them stretch out huge wooden planks to display garlands," an official said.

At least three persons are seen around each of these makeshift outlets, busy making garlands. The flower waste is heaped nearby. The water used to sprinkle over the flowers to keep them fresh also stagnates around, causing the stench.

"The local body has banned the sale of rose in the last couple of weeks, as it generates a lot of garbage," a shopkeeper said. The flower-vendors also place huge iceboxes around them, causing more inconvenience to passers-by.

Adding to the filth are those running food joints who splash the waste water collected in small drums on the bays. "Though officially only two hotels with taps and other facilities, such as cleaning and washing, have been permitted to operate, two dozen small outlets selling all kinds of food items are functioning," the official said.

These outlets do not have either drainage or washbasins. And, the waste collected in drums is let into the bays. "Other garbage such as used banana leaves and fruit waste are stealthily dumped inside the three closed drainages. These drainages do not function but breed mosquitoes," the official said.

The encroachments go up at night, when the Corporation officials go home. People could not walk through the side corridors, as shops on either side spread out tables and chairs. Even the big `chulahs' are kept outside.

The drive to remove encroachments, though conducted every week, is not effective. The squatters return in no time.

"Only if the drives are conducted every day for at least a week, and all property kept outside the shops seized and not returned without a huge penalty, the menace could not be checked," a councillor said.

Even as the stench emanates from the six urinals owing to the lack of adequate water supply, the construction of two more urinals will not serve any purpose, a shopkeeper said. He is upset about the officials' apathy to the upkeep of the bus stand. "The thick black cob-web on the ceiling is a telling evidence," he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu

News Update

Stories in this Section

Hundreds of CPI cadres arrested

Does it stand a chance of clean environment?

Order summoning witnesses on judgment day quashed

Lalu Prasad urged to take back outsourced services

Three held for murder

Sampark Kranti Express to run from Sept. 19

`Maintain proper sanitation'

Two file papers

Around the City

In Madurai Today