City: Chennai

Wearing a plain school uniform, holding a banner in one hand and a lunch bag in the other, a young lad marched on the streets of Padur last year. Apart from the words on the banner -- ‘Kudiyai Vidu, Padikka Vidu’ (Give up liquor, let us study), it is the steely determination of the eight-year-old boy, A Aakaash, that caught everyone’s attention and spirited the anti-TASMAC agitation at Padur, a small hamlet on Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR). Toys or clothes do not interest Aakaash. His worries belie his age. When a liquor shop in an inappropriate place needs removal or…

Are we compromising on the coastline? The draft plan proposed by the Tamil Nadu Government on the coastal management has drawn much criticism from environmentalists and fishermen. What irks environmentalists and citizens particularly is the government’s apathy and indifference in presenting an incomplete draft plan and then inviting a public hearing on the same. Not only has the plan not followed the guidelines and preparation of CZMPs, as per Annexure-1 of Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification 2011, hazard mapping seems to have also been compromised. Besides the blatant violations, a large area of coastline along the ECR  has been changed…

On March 18, 2017 I visited a water body in GKM Colony located right next to the K5 Police Station (Peravallur), Jawahar Nagar in response to a request from Arappor Iyakkam to conduct an audit on the city’s water bodies. There were some workers who were involved in spraying chemicals and were also at the same time removing the floating garbage from this particular pond, which is called the Vannankuttai. A storm water drain (SWD) was found to be discharging untreated sewage directly into the Vannankuttai through a circular pipe, as you will see in the following image: Summer was…

Once there was a river. Rather, there were many rivers. And then there were none. In the run up to Arappor Iyakkam's Sakkadai Thiruvizha, a citizen awareness program to highlight the problem of sewage being let into Chennai's water bodies, two young photographers -- Raghavan Lokesh and Mohan Kumar Karunakaran -- volunteered to travel along Chennai's rivers, and capture images for our readers. The pictures are heart breaking. Let us take a minute to view, and mull over, what we have done to the lifelines of this city. [Raghavan Lokesh is an entrepreneur and has been volunteering with Arappor Iyakkam…

On the evening of Saturday, March 31st, the residents of Besant Nagar were taken aback when large stretches of perfectly laid pavements, between Theosophical Society and Olcott School, interspersed with young trees protected by tree guards, were dug up and uprooted by a crew from the Greater Chennai Corporation. When they asked what the work was about, and who had ordered it, they were told that the Bus Route Roads (BRR) department of the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), had a plan to widen the pavements and provide bicycle lanes. But why break perfectly good stretches when there are so many…

With summer approaching, the beaches in Chennai are expected to have more visitors looking to beat the heat but sadly, given the state of safety measures in these beaches, the safe return of the visitor is entirely up to chance and personal precautions. The lack of adequate safeguards is serious cause for concern among citizens and NGOs alike. A recent case, in which a teen hockey player in Chennai drowned off the Marina, spurred the Madras High Court (MHC) into action. The court directed the state government to install watchtowers and station lifesaving boats on the beach to prevent any…

For slum dwellers evicted from the banks of the Adyar and Cooum rivers in Chennai, currently residing in Perumbakkam, access to food rations under the Public Distribution System (PDS) is proving to be one arduous process. In addition to lack of educational facilities for children and infrastructural inadequacies highlighted in earlier articles in Citizen Matters Chennai, severe lapses in the functioning of the government-organised PDS, leading to insufficient essential commodities that families are dependent on, have also come to light. Inadequate numbers of PDS centres For the estimated number of 7600 families in Perumbakkam, there is only one PDS centre,…

14 ponds in Manali to be restored in the first phase under the Smart City Mission Chennai Corporation will work on restoring 14 ponds in Manali, in the first phase of the pan city initiative under the Smart City Mission.  Chennai has around 280 water bodies of which 145 lakes and ponds come under the Corporation jurisdiction.  The Chennai Corporation has planned to revive all these water bodies in a phased manner. "According to the Corporation officials, it has been proposed to use permeable pavement methods like sand gravel mix as part of the restoration work. It has also been…

Maintaining the worn out ration book was anyway quite a task in every household. But it’s time to bid adieu to the age-old tradition. Smart cards are the digital version of ration booklets designed like an ATM card. Earlier this year, the Government of Tamil Nadu led by the Chief Minister, Edappadi K Palanisamy announced a move to issue smart cards in lieu of the existing ration cards. So far the government has issued 1,98,69,625 smart cards to ration card holders across the state whereas the total number of beneficiaries are calculated to be 6,70,65,374. Meanwhile, residents with old ration…

March 23, 2015; the venue: Chennai Corporation Council. While passing the budget of his last term in office, 'Saidai' Duraisamy, then Mayor of Chennai remarked, “Of the 419 announcements made by the AIADMK-led Corporation so far,  218 have been implemented. We will implement the remaining 165 this year.” This was at the Corporation Council meet on the budget. He also compared the percentage of announcements that were implemented in the earlier regime vs his current regime and was proud that he had  done better by a margin of 15%. In that budget debate, 103 of the 200 councillors participated. The opposition…