The remarkable interest shown by the State Government and the Greater Chennai Corporation of late in heritage restoration is bearing fruit, as is evident from the successive glad tidings in recent times reported in these pages. There is promise of more to come, with work starting on the Bharat Insurance buildings, not to mention the much-awaited restoration of Gokhale Hall. With the Heritage Cell in place in the PWD to oversee restoration activities of government heritage structures, there is much to be positive about. Yet another heartening development is the recent interest shown by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation in showcasing prominent landmarks of the city through its latest initiative, the Chennai Ula bus service.
On January 17, the MTC launched its first vintage styled hop on hop off bus service, covering some of the city’s iconic landmarks through a circular sightseeing route. A ticket, priced at Rs 50 per day permits unlimited boarding and alighting across all stops, enabling tourists to indulge in sightseeing at their own pace. Starting and ending at the Central Station, buses are operated at 30-minute intervals, with the service being run from 4 PM to 10 PM on weekdays and from 10 AM to 10 PM on weekends and public holidays. The buses are especially retro-fitted, with the red exterior clearly designed to invoke a sense of nostalgia. An onboard audio system plays historical snippets as one passes major landmarks. The key destinations include the Egmore Station, Egmore Museum, Lighthouse, Santhome Cathedral, the Vivekananda Illam, Kannagi statue and the War Memorial. The service seems to have certainly evoked interest amongst the public going by initial news reports.
This development comes at a time when the Tourism Department has launched its own daily city sightseeing initiative on an EV double decker bus, offering ‘a panoramic view of the city’s iconic heritage, cultural landmarks and scenic coastline’, to quote from its website. Starting from the TTDC office on Wallajah Road, it offers passengers a glimpse of major landmarks around Anna Salai and the Beach Road, covering destinations such as the DGP Office, the All India Radio, the Napier Bridge and the memorials on the Marina. These services are run during three time slots a day.
While these are undoubtedly laudable initiatives aimed at promoting low-cost, comfortable and in the case of the Ula service, a flexible way of getting to know the heritage of our city, one cannot but help wonder if these could be more productively designed. Take the choice of destinations themselves. Both these services cover spots that anyway attract good amount of tourist crowds on a routine basis and except for the novelty of the mode of transport seem to add little value to enhancing heritage awareness. It would be interesting to see if the patronage can be sustained, especially in the case of Ula once the novelty wears off. Without going into the merits of the choice of each destination being covered at present, it can be safely said that it is definitely possible to make a completely alternative list, covering landmarks that no one talks about but for dedicated heritage enthusiasts. Theme-based routes too could be curated. These would certainly help attract people wanting to explore the city through a non-touristy lens. A broader initiative could be to explore the possibility of making some space to display information in bus shelters across the city about heritage landmarks in their immediate vicinity. May be corporates could be roped in to fund these as a part of their CSR activities.
There has certainly been a lot of laudable conservation efforts of the city’s heritage structures in recent times. Initiatives such as the Ula have great potential in promoting heritage awareness amongst the masses. It is hence crucial to leverage them to the fullest, which would hopefully lead the way to a more heritage-conscious society. All it requires is a bit of out-of-the-box thinking.