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— Photo: K. Ramesh Babu

The way to go: A dedicated bus carriageway will ensure optimum usage of public transport.

At first glance, all right thinking citizens would hail this shift to endorse and encourage public transport and especially of buses. A dedicated bus carriageway which would ensure speed and comfort is no doubt the best way to wean the public from two and four wheelers and ensure optimum usage of public transport. After all any reduction in the number of vehicles on the roads daily would reduce the need for importing fossil fuels which are both economically and environmentally damaging to the country. In general creating an exclusive path for the BRTS that prioritises its needs and the needs of its users over private transport is the key to ensure its success.

Why then some find the TNUIFSL proposal will actually cause more damage than good? Why the unease about the Chennai Circular Corridor project?

First, Chennai was presented with a Draft Second Master Plan only in April 2007 by the city’s planning agency, Chennai Metropolitan Planning authority (CMDA). Despite being discussed threadbare in public fora and revised to include future projects and plans before being finalised this year, there is no mention of this Circular Corridor project or even its necessity in this master plan. There is, on the other hand, an entire chapter on transportation, that discusses the metro rail and other projects. Did the premier planning agency, the CMDA fail to identify the need for this “critical project” or is the TNUIFSL, which is basically a fund manager, projecting this project as “critical”? Does public limited company co-owned by three financial institutions and the state government have more planning expertise than the CMDA?

Second, is this really a BRTS project or a much bigger transport project? Either way, city planners will agree while projects are necessary to kick start certain planning objectives, stand alone projects not integrated with a holistic vision of the metropolis are likely to cause unforeseen problems.

Third, experts and citizens contributed time and effort in participating in the public consultation. After all, the space for public discourse in planning has been provided only in the Town and Country Planning Act. Large projects, such as this, promoted by Special Purpose Vehicles such as the TNUIFSL, are not mandated to provide the same, which leaves the citizen yet again at the receiving end of a top down approach. As we are all aware, fund managers are accountable only to the investors. How can such large projects be discussed and decided without public discussion?

Further, curiously, tenders for the feasibility plan for this transport project have been called for by the Adyar Poonga Trust. The Adyar Poonga Trust, the public was made to understand, was to protect, improve and restore the degraded Adyar Creek and Estuary area and also improve the condition of the Adyar River which impacts this creek. NGO efforts have resulted in the High Court clearly stating that the Creek and Estuary area must be restored as a wetland. Why then is the Adyar Poonga Trust calling for studies to set up roads and flyovers across and along the waterways of Chennai?

Fifth, an easy but environmentally destructive solution of land identification for the MRTS was the Buckingham Canal some years ago. As is well known, the alignment for the MRTS was not based on transportation needs, but land availability – resulting in the wastage of crores of public money, the setting up of a shabby and unused MRT system and the destruction of a waterway. It is feared that, in the same insensitive manner, this circular project sought to be located not where it is needed, but where land can be easily obtained. One stretch of this highway corridor is to run along the southern bank of the river, cutting into the banks of the Theosophical Society, seeking to destroy yet another of the few remaining pristine natural areas of the city, that has been thus far protected from government sponsored destruction.

The sixth issue is that if the project is also about cleaning up of the water ways of Chennai what is the guarantee that this time round it will work? The Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s reports of 2006 of the Chennai City River Conservation Project (CCRCP) being implemented by the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage Board (CMWSSB) to clean up the city’s waterways has already shown that several hundred crores of rupees have literally gone down the drain. The Metrowater Board continues to discharge untreated sewage into the rivers. Interestingly, the Chairman of the Metrowater Board is also the Chairman of TNUIFSL and a member of the Adyar Poonga Trust, making the question of accountability very difficult to understand.

Finally is the effect that this circular road project will have on the restoration efforts of the Adyar Creek and Estuary. Making a river into a channel by bunding up and constructing on its banks and flood plains will destroy the diversity found on its banks. . As is evident, the BRTS dropped off somewhere in this article, because this project is not about buses or public transport.

Throwing in “dedicated bus lanes”, “CNG” and “walkways and fountains” into this project, may impress private investors who have no stake in the city, but for citizens who have suffered the bad roads, lack of pedestrian space, sewage filled rivers and unrestricted entry of private cars and resultant congestion, the “Chennai Circular Corridor” will turn out as an urban disaster.

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