CHENNAI: It’s six months now since the Station Road next to the Madras Institute of Technology (MIT) in Chrompet and the Bashyam Street running perpendicular to the Station Road were dug up by the Pallavaram Municipality for laying underground drainage pipelines. According to residents of the locality, work on laying the pipelines on Station Road, where the Chrompet market is situated, began in October last year, but was stalled for a while in January. After resuming in February, the work is going on now, but not without causing inconvenience to the 150-odd shop owners, besides commuters.
Residents complained that they had to park their vehicles near the Chrompet bus stand and walk home as it was becoming increasingly tough for them to drive on the road.
In fact, a huge pit, which was dug up on Saturday right on the middle of Radha Nagar Main Road which runs perpendicular to Bashyam Street, has added to the woes of commuters, especially those travelling by two-wheelers.
The Radha Nagar Main Road connects the GST Road with the interiors of Chrompet and many commuters prefer this road as a short-cut to their destination.
Speaking to City Express, R Sakthivel, a resident of Chrompet, said he now had to take a longer route to reach his destination, which takes him an additional 15 minutes.
“Everytime, a vehicle passes by, it kicks up dust. It has become increasingly tough to travel on the entire stretch for the past couple of months,” he added.
P Gopi, an auto driver, said that no barricades had been put up at the spot where the road starts, to alert motorists that work was in progress there. “People who are new to this place have to beat a retreat after seeing the condition of the road,” he said.
Shop owners on the stretch said that even though 80 per cent of the road was re-laid last week after a major part of the work was completed, the road was still uneven and a permanent solution was nowhere in sight. “In the past three months, the number of customers visiting my shop has come down drastically,” said A Veerabhagu, who owns a garment shop on Bashyam Street.
T Murugesan, a juice shop owner on Station Road, said that the dust generated was so thick that around 80 shops on the road had to down their shutters for around 10 days during the initial phase of the work. The situation, he rued, hadn’t improved much now.
When City Express contacted the Assistant Engineer of the Pallavaram Municipality, in-charge of the project, she said that the entire road would be re-laid as soon as the work is completed.
“The work will be completed in 10 days. We have already called for tenders for laying the roads. We want to finish the underground drainage work as soon as possible so that the re-laying of the roads can begin. Though we had plans to continue the work on Radha Nagar Main Road, we will not proceed with it as the residents are complaining,” she said, adding that the work was delayed due to enormous traffic on the stretch.