For over two decades, residents along Chennai's Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) have been fed a steady diet of promises about piped water supply. From desalination plants to reservoirs, successive governments have announced grand projects that would finally quench the IT corridor's thirst. Yet, as of January 2026, OMR residents are still struggling with inadequate piped water and are forced to rely on expensive private tankers or depleted groundwater that grows more brackish each year. The original promise It began with hope. In July 2004, the then Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, announced central government support for a desalination plant near Chennai.…
Read moreLast week the consultants tasked with preparing the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the BRTS invited us to a meeting. A few of us from FOMRRA (Federation of OMR Resident Associations), representing citizens living and using OMR (Old Mahabalipuram Road), went to the meeting. The show started with some short films on the "successfully implemented projects" in Pune, Amdavad, Hubli-Dharwad and others. As the consultation started more than an hour late, they breezed through a PowerPoint presentation. However, we, who follow the mass transit planning and development studies associated with OMR, found that most of the data presented was based…
Read moreAt Sabari Terrace, an apartment community with 56 flats off the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) in Sholinganallur, we took the first steps towards segregation around five years ago. It started with the creation of a few humble compost pits within our premises - cement rings resting on the ground - where we would dump all our garden waste to begin with. We approached the guru of vermicomposting, Dr. Sultan Ahmed Ismail, and under his guidance started the process of composting our garden waste. Gradually over the next few weeks, months and years, we started approaching the families in the community,…
Read more