CHENNAI: The only view on offer to a bored commuter on the Elephant Gate bridge is that of heaps of garbage, cloth and medical waste including syringes.
The residents nearby say people of Sowcarpet and Moore Market dump garbage here on a large scale as the bridge has been completely neglected by the corporation authorities.
The bridge, which connects the Wall Tax Road and Pulianthope High Road, was once open for both light and heavy motor vehicles. For about two years now, only two-wheelers and ‘meenbody vandi’ (fish carts) have been plying on it as the Southern Railway has proposed to reconstruct the bridge which is in a dilapidated condition.
“The unattended garbage has been here for many months. People come in ‘meen body vandi’, during late nights and dump waste here,” said M.Kuttikala (50), a squatter on Wall Tax Road.
“Merchants from Sowcarpet pay labourers to take away building construction waste from their backyard and dump them somewhere else. The labourers find it easy to dump them here as nobody questions them,” she added.
Stephen K (29), another resident of the area, said the corporation authorities collect garbage only up to the starting point of the bridge and do not go beyond that as the entrance is blocked with metal rods preventing bigger vehicles from entering.
There are no garbage disposal bins and the hawkers and vendors there dispose of waste in the open air,
said Stephen.
A corporation official in the Royapuram zone told Express that a team would be deployed to clear the garbage immediately with the use of wheelbarrows.
‘’We will soon write to the Elephant Gate Police to patrol the area during nights to stop further dumping of debris,’’ he said.