CHENNAI: In an age of high-rise buildings cropping up in every empty space in the city, people have only Corporation parks to turn to for recreational purposes. But sadly, these public spots have often been neglected by the authorities. Joining the long list of Corporation parks that continue to remain in a bad shape is the Erukkanchery Poonga in Vyasarpadi.
In this park, there are no compound walls, no benches, and the plants have all withered. The park is frequented by dogs and it has not been cleaned for days. Local residents alleged that the park has been closed for several days. This park is often visited by tipplers, and recently, when they were unable to get in, they broke the walls to enter.
“Normally, the park is open till late at night and people go in through the gates. However, as it was closed recently, tipplers, who mostly use the park in the evenings, had razed down the wall,” said Sarala R, a resident. The park is located on the Vyasarpadi Main Road and behind it runs the Captain Cotton Canal.
When we visited the park, the premises had several alcohol bottles and cigarette butts.
Residents said that even when the park was open, there were no watchmen. “We feel unsafe going there with children. All the benches have been vandalised by miscreants and there’s no place to sit,” added Sarala. The park had very high walls that people could not climb, which is why it could’ve been razed down, say locals.
Apart from this, the park also lacked civic amenities such as restrooms. As a result, people had to urinate in the open inside the park which in turn caused a bad odour. Owing to lack of manpower, the City Corporation had handed over 554 parks out of 669 in city limits to private contractors for maintenance. A total of 61 contractors were selected at a total contract value of about `40 crore. But how they maintain the parks is yet a mystery as not just this park in Vyasarpadi
but many in Tondiarpet, Royapuram, Old Washermenpet and Basin Bridge suffer the same plight.
When contacted, Corporation officials said that proposals to build the walls of the park were on. “We will be instructing the private contractors to reconstruct the wall at the earliest and appoint a watchman too,” said the official.