Parliamentary Elections 2009

This is the second part of my blog on What’s wrong with namma Chennai.

Waterways or lack thereof  is my lament. Chennai is one of the very few cities worldwide to boast of two rivers running right through it. Most of them would be surprised to know if rivers run through Chennai at all in the first place. Adyar and Coovam are the rivers. But to all, these are not rivers but wholesale sewages. What else can one call it. Indiscriminate dumping of waste has turned what could have been a marvel into eyesore. This dumping of waste is being continued for many many years without any intervention from our political class. Of course, they merely stop with putting up plans/committees to correct the situation. There has been no action on ground.  There has been periodic desilting of Coovam river at the Marina Beach point but just that, no attempt has been made to correct the root cause. Everyone blames everyone else – tanneries and other industries, slums, general public. But can you believe it, the TWAD board itself let untreated sewage into these rivers for a long long time. I’m not sure if that is still being practiced by TWAD.

Another man-made waterway into ruins is the Buckingham canal. In the name of MRTS, our planning stalwarts have destroyed a major and critical portion of the canal running right through the city.  The best part is  people are currently talking about reviving the canal and use it to transport good and people.  But I don’t hope to see the plan being realized in the next 20 years.

Just imagine how beautiful if will be if both the rivers are cleaned up and interlinked to the Buckingham canal and pure water runs through it.

Chennai, will you ever turn beautiful?

I love Chennai – given all its plusses and minuses. It really irks me when the minuses outweigh the plusses. People from all walks of life will love Chennai only if the plusses outweigh the minuses. So what are the minuses? This is not a ranking and issues are not in any particular order. I’ll list down the issues and take up one issue per post on a detailed basis

Major Issues -

1.Transportation and Traffic

2.Waterways

3.Urban Planning

4.Green cover

5. Hygiene and Civic sense

Issue for the day : Transportation & Traffic -

Everyone complains about traffic and increase in private transportation, it is a vicious cycle. But if at all there was a efficient public tranport system, more than 80% of our traffic related problems would have been solved. Building flyovers is not the solution. Infact we have most of the flyovers on the wrong roads/places or wrong length. All of our solutions given by the politicans is only short termed. Probably only till thier tenure lasts. We need people who can think and implement things from a 40-50yrs perspective. Look at the Gemini flyover constructed way back, or look at the width of Mount Road (Anna Salai) built by Britishers and compare it with any of the bridges or road we have built in recent times. I’m again saying if at all we have a proper public transportation model, we can still manage with the roads we have.  Many efforts have been taken to have a multi modal tranport authority but it effectively not there even on paper. MRTS was started and still not completed, Metro is to be started, Beach expressway has been proposed, Adyar River expressway has been proposed, Port expressway launched and the list goes on and on.

Take MRTS for example, why has been there a delay for so long? The Govt is taking so many steps to project IT Highway, why is there no proposal to take the MRTS till there? It is common sense that the train tracks be extended till there, or is ITEL preveting it because it stands to lose toll revenue? In Mumbai, train is the main mode of transport and buses are used to serve stations, why can’t we have it here?

Another classic example is Autos, just google Chennai and Auto and check. Everyone on earth know that Auto in Chennai are the worst of the lost, fleecing customers day in day out right in front of the eyes of law but still no action is taken against them.  After all auto is another mode of public transport. If the system in B’lore or Mumbai is adopted, people will definetly prefer to choose autos and buses and trains instead of cars and bikes.

All I would say to politicians is set right the public transportation model and save crores of rupees. It is not very tough to do it, all it takes is a litle courage and long term vision.