A walk alongside the teeming IT Expressway, outside the Kasturba Nagar MRTS station is generally a very learning experience. On both sides of the median – where you will see manicured and neatly planted/efficiently watered rows of conventional landscaping (courtesy the Tamil Nadu Road Development Corporation, TNRDC) – there are synchronised streams of vehicles of all shapes and sizes; on the left hand side corner, you will see a diversity of tree species planted and raised by a green NGO’s young volunteers (initiated by the erstwhile Satyam Foundation); and in between all this you will see neatly attired and deo smelling software engineers waiting for their travel modes amid the piles of rubbish all around!

The state-of-the-art road meant to be the pride of the city.

Look above at the station roofs, and huge hoardings promise ‘Luxury homes in garden cities’ and ‘bigger homes for little pleasures of life’! A leading hotel chain advertises its ‘passion par excellence’ while overlooking a heaped pile of discarded chips packets, mineral water bottles, discarded chappals and tetrapacks! And all around, passers-by mill about eagerly, walking through litter, waiting for the buses that will carry them to their chosen paths.

Apparently, the TNRDC’s purview ends with cleaning the main roads on which vehicles ply. Sometime last year, when a senior Corporation official was contacted for help, I was told to talk to the Railway. The senior Railway official in charge said that the premises of the Railway were outsourced to a contractor, but his purview did not stretch to the public road or to litter contributed by pedestrians. On going back to the ­Corporation once again, I was directed to another zonal commissioner who, after much ­deliberation, agreed that it did fall within his zone’s purview, but…! And after many phone calls and many days, the official in Zone IX indicated that he would send a ‘gang’ to immediately clean up the area. Ah, we all heaved a sigh of relief, in eager anticipation of the area’s better fortunes. But a week later, on a monitoring visit, my heart sank…there was more litter – of different composition, though. Obviously, they didn’t imagine we would follow up!

Truth is, the left hand side stretch is neglected all along the IT Corridor, but the litter is the maximum at the MRTS Kasturba station corner since it is where floating populations come and go. A contract worker employed by the Railway says, “We clean up within our borders. Why should we be expected to clean up the litter thrown around by pedestrians who board buses outside the station? Also, TNRDC labourers regularly dump the rubbish cleared on their roads on this stretch, because there is nobody to question!” He smiles knowingly at all the sweet-smelling, white collared professionals who are deftly hopping onto their company’s vehicles.

24-year-old Arvind was talking into his hands-free mobile near a conglomerated mess beside the roadside, when I asked him if it bothered him. “Oh, well, it does sometimes, but who has the time to follow up with the powers-that-be, and I don’t think they will even if I do, anyway!” he shrugged the issue off. Auto driver Muniswamy, busy soliciting passengers for his share auto, is apologetic, “Paatha varuthamathan irrukku, naanga enna pannalam? (I do feel sad when I see this, but what can I do?).”

Lending a rare beauty and colour to the dismal ambience all around, however, are the trees – the Thaneerkai in orange bloom, and the Manjal Konnai in brilliant yellow along with the Thangapetti. The Punnai saplings are lovely strapping youngsters, and the Iyalvagai and the Mandharai will burst into flower in a month or so! As for the pretty pink Arali buds which bloom throughout, they are greedily plucked by all the early morning walkers for their home poojas, denying them to the butterflies. Thankfully, at least the birds have a quiet place to rest this side of the magnificent expressway … in no man’s land!

Now the NGO is trying to put in a system for checking on the station front by a volunteer and by another volunteer who will call and keep reminding the official to send his ‘gang’, which is a bit too much. Is there any other option?