The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Reporter's Diary

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 22, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Reporter's Diary

Even after the allocation of two bus termini for Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses on Esplanade Road near the Madras High Court, the MTC authorities are unable to mitigate the sufferings of commuters.

For instance, at the terminus meant for south-bound buses, confusion prevails over the departure of buses on some routes. Commuters are not sure where buses on route numbers 18 K and K 18 will be parked.

As there are no parking slots for the buses, commuters run from one place to another. At times, some of buses on these routes do not halt. Though an MTC official maintains that there is an officer supervising the services, the travelling public continue to suffer.

* * *

Art is a reflection of life indeed. Statues and sculptures generally highlight the finer and glossy lifestyles of the rich and the famous, but it is not so at the Government College of Arts, Vepery here.

At the entrance to the college, a big dustbin full of garbage greets visitors. There are quite a few crows feeding on them. Near the garbage bin is the statue of a beggar in rags, who is eating out of the bin.

A little further down lies the statue of a body with carrions feeding on it.

Morbid it may seem at first sight, but the students say it was their way of paying homage to the life of the poor man and thousands of persons who died in the tsunami.

Statues of poverty and death that throb with life.

* * *

Traffic regulations in the interior residential localities are followed more in the breach than in observance. One such case is at the Halls Road-Taylors Road junction in Kilpauk. The entry to Halls Road from Taylors Road has long been banned. Signboards announcing `no-entry' has been in place at the Y-shaped entry points surrounding a small park. Only motorists seem to be ignoring the regulation completely. The one-way arrangement was reversed and then reinstated about four years ago.

The residents who live on Halls Road or nearby lanes complained when traffic policemen began booking vehicles entering Halls Road from Taylors Road. Since then, the traffic police have forgotten about the arrangement and motorists seem to be having a freeway.

To make things worse, customers to a liquor shop in the corner of a lane often clog the way for vehicles passing by.

The residents wonder why a one-way arrangement was made when it was not going to be enforced.

* * *

Residents of north Chennai have appealed several times to the police and Chennai Port Trust authorities to solve the perennial problem of congestion caused by container trucks on S.N. Chetty Street (Royapuram - Tondiarpet).

The huge trucks wait in queue from Kalmandapam in the southern end to the Toll Gate in the north to enter the port. Local residents wonder why the Port authorities or container terminal officials do not allow the trucks to be parked in some portion of the port, so that traffic on this already congested stretch can ease a bit.

* * *

Users of another stretch, this time in south Chennai, have a slightly different problem. The overbridge on Velachery-Tambaram Road near Pallikaranai has been opened to traffic easing the congestion. But the cattle that move on the road pose a hazard to vehicle users.

* * *

(Contributions from
K.T. Sangameswaran, Swahilya and Saptarshi Bhattacharya)

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