T'Nagar appeals

Worshipful Mayor,

We, as the residents of T’Nagar, would like you to bestow your personal attention to this fast growing but deteriorating business hub. Once a pure residential locality, T’Nagar can now boast of many a textile/jewellery and other showrooms. It is slowly turning into a commercial hub at the cost of its residents, who form the major population. Since this hub is well connected both by road and rail, T’Nagar is besieged daily by people from far and near. Such is its floating population on any normal day that, in T’Nagar, it is Diwali and Pongal every day. Therefore it is not surprising that this hub has as many hawkers/encroachers too.

All available places are either occupied or encroached upon by the vendors/hawkers and there is hardly any place for walking. Though the Chennai Corporation often chants that footpaths are only for the pedestrians, in T’Nagar, footpaths have been completely hijacked by the vendors/hawkers.

Most of the side streets, abutting Usman Road, which are residential, have become parking lots for the shoppers’ vehicles. This is due to the fact that the commercial complexes have not provided parking space within their premises to park the vehicles of their clients. As the shoppers park on both sides of the streets close to the commercial complexes, the residents are put to great hardship. Often, residents find it difficult to even come out of their houses and are not able to take their own vehicles out. In certain streets, the auto-stands pose additional problems to the residents.

The [in]famous Ranganthan Street, which is where the largest crowds surge, is the worst in terms of encroachment, violations of building rules/fire safety norms, etc. Here, the commercial complexes/shops have usurped the public space.

Many roads/streets have not been relaid and are in a pitiable condition. In streets where the civic body has taken up the construction of stormwater drains, the work has been progressing at a snail’s pace. Besides the slow pace, the very construction of the stormwater drains leaves a lot to be desired. We wonder why the civic body spends enormous amount on a project which serves no purpose!

Metrowater sewerage lines laid decades ago have become useless as they are not designed to take heavy loads. If bigger capacity pipes are not laid, overflow of sewage will be a permanent threat.

With regard to garbage removal, the less said the better. Everywhere in T’Nagar, uncleared mounds of garbage are an eyesore. The commercial complexes dump a lot of waste on the streets/roads as they do not have any disposal system on their own. Plastic bags form a major chunk of the waste.

Even during normal hours, an ambulance or fire tender would not be able to reach any of the streets/roads fast enough because of heavy encroachment.

We suggest that every commercial complex and all shops of all kinds in T’Nagar must compulsorily shut one day every week. Those who do not fall in line should be taken to task. In doing this, a much-needed breather will be provided to residents and different civic bodies to attend to their work without hassle. The shops and commercial complexes should also be allowed to work only between 9 a.m and 8 p.m. with any extension only during festival days but that too after obtaining prior permission. Garbage dumping by the commercial complexes must be seriously viewed and penalties imposed to curb this abominable practice.

T’Nagar has reached a saturation point and any further unchecked developmental activities will only do more harm than good. Please save the residents who now face the prospect of having to quit T’Nagar due to various problems it faces on all fronts. Considering that the residents are the major stakeholders, they deserve a better deal, free from garbage, pollution, encroachment, hawkers/vendors and congestion.

V.S. Jayaraman
Joint Secretary
T’Nagar Residents’ Welfare Association
tnagarresidents@sify.com

Another side

In the 1930s there were few magazines and fewer writers in Tamil. And those who wrote did so mainly on domestic situations, porno and unbelievable thrillers. It was at this stage that Ananda Vikatan and Kalki promoted creative writing. Besides being a great writer ‘Kalki’ Krishnamoorthy was a successful businessman. He wrote endlessly – stories, poems, political essays and adaptations from Western essays and other Indian languages. The result, both magazines grew sizeably with a plethora to follow suit.

Close friends have vouchsafed that So. Vi., as Pudumai-Pithan (MM, November 16th) was also known, was a non-conformist, transforming into a rebel. He rebelled against his father, his editor-bosses and contemporaries who had succeeded in life. This landed him in penury and he died a sad man. Though he attacked Kalki with his vitriolic criticisms, it was Kalki who came to the rescue of his bereaved family and built for them a house from public donations.

On the other hand, many of his admirers and followers kept up the tempo of attacks, which pleased the arm-chair drones. It is a pity that some little magazines toe the line.

At present when everyone is busy minting money through artifical intelligence, arguments that are pro-So. Vi. and anti-Kalki do not serve any purpose.

S Krishna
81/2, Fourth Main Road
Gandhi Nagar
Adyar
Chennai - 600 020

Cost-effectiveness

I refer to ‘The drama of sealing illegal constructions’ (MM, November 16th). The status of T’Nagar of the 1920s can be achieved only by declaring the area a ‘Pedestrian Zone’ as is the case in some cities in other parts of the world.

The authorities should not have allowed the construction of such buildings in the first place. But demolition of the structures at this stage will result only in further environmental pollution. And there is no guarantee that at a future date the constructions will not come up again and bring the area back to what it is now.

Demolishing the structures will affect the local environment through dust, debris and sound pollution. The debris also has to be disposed of by transporting it to a distant place which will affect the ecology of that place. In addition, consumption of fuel by the transporting vehicles will lead to generation of greenhouse gases. Repairs to the partly demolished structures will also need materials extracted from natural resources. Such an operation may in its totality be considered a squandering of natural resources.

The environmentalists and ecologists should estimate the ecological and environmental cost involved in the whole process of construction, demolition, reconstruction/restoration etc., and must ask themselves whether the demolition is worthwhile. If the authorities intend to enforce the rules, then they may have to demolish almost 75 per cent of the buildings. This will not only affect the business of their owners but also their cash flow as well as that of their employees. Banks that have given loans to both will be affected too.

It is not unknown for authorities to change the rules. Large chunks of agricultural land are converted to residential areas by authorities, causing a problem of food security. Mining of sand is going on in river beds leading to depletion of groundwater resources.

The T’Nagar buildings have come up due to officialdom’s inefficiency or connivance with the real estate promoters who ignore the rules. Stuck with the buildings, it might be advisable to regularise the contravention of the town planning rules by imposing a heavy fine on the defaulters to meet the needs of improved facilities in the area and convert the area as a ‘Pedestrian Zone’ rather than causing further damage and cost to the environment by demolition of the built structures. If amenities are lacking, the shop-owners must be asked to provide them. T’Nagar is considered a shopper’s paradise for the people of not only Tamil Nadu but also of adjacent States and countries. Let’s benefit from that by retaining it as it is by making it more user-friendly for which shopkeepers should pay by way of hefty fines.

S.N. Mahalingam
(Suptdg. Engineer, PWD, Retd, Formerly Research Scholar,
IIS, Bangalore)
64-A Kalamegam Street Extn.
SBI Colony II Street Kamarajapuram, Chennai 600 073

Tamil-Tambul

K.V.S. Krishna who wrote ‘India, largely a country of immigrants’ in MM, October 16th, sends us a letter from a friend of his in Papua New Guinea. Sriram’s letter states, among other things:

I arrived in PNG in mid-May to act as a Consultant for the Institute of Business Studies in Port Moresby. I later joined the Institute as a Manager – Systems.

Recently, I was talking to my co-staff, Steven Korowa, who hails from one of the villages (Kagul) in the Highlands. Our conversation drifted towards language and I was surprised to find that we had a lot in common in this area. Does this mean that there is a link between our two civilisations? If anyone who can share more about this, I will truly appreciate the effort.

I was also intrigued to find that a lot of places and people are named after characters in the Ramayana. For example, Sita, Rama, Bali, Laxman, Manus are some of the names of places as well as people.