INVESTIGATIVE

In a city like Chennai where public transportation is not really optimal in terms of supporting last mile connectivity, share autos are the cheapest and easiest option and have naturally emerged as the common man’s preferred mode of transport. But the advantages of this intermediate public transport or para transit cannot override the range of problems faced by commuters and even share auto drivers themselves. In Part 1 of the series on share autos, we discussed why share autos are necessary, especially in view of the demand surplus that crowded MTC buses are not able to meet. But commuters list…

9.45 acres. Three officials in charge and at least 1.5 lakh rupees of public money spent every month on this near-defunct institution. These details pertain to the only government beggar rehabilitation centre located at Melpakkam near Avadi that has had no inmates for more than three years now. There are three permanent officers who live at the Centre itself, besides 14 officers who work on deputation basis. Even if we ignore the salaries of deputed officers for the time being, who also work in leprosy homes in Tamil Nadu, the three officers are paid between 40,000 to 70,000 every month, as shared…

When it comes to transparency and providing information to citizens, Tamil Nadu has a rich legacy. The southern state was a front runner in passing the Right To Information (RTI) act in 1997, eight years before the Centre passed it in 2005.  The Act proved to be a game changer. To cite just one example, an RTI activist exposed a scam by the Tamil Nadu Housing Department (TNHB) in December 2010, where selected government servants were provided with houses, under the Government Discretion Quota. Through the RTI reply and further investigation, it was learnt that undeserving people were categorised as social…

Rows of eight-storied buildings on both sides of Ezhil Nagar Main Road of Perumbakkam paint an impressive picture of the resettlement colonies constructed by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB). The residents, who were evicted from the slums alongside Adyar and Cooum Rivers after the 2015 floods, live in these buildings which are apparently quite well-maintained. But is life really as rosy for the residents here? The glaring deficiencies can only be spotted once one steps inside these colonies and looks deeper.     In an earlier article on the Perumbakkam resettlement, Citizen Matters exposed the pathetic conditions in a primary…

The standard of roads in Chennai city is something that the common citizen is all too familiar with. Newly laid roads last a year at the most, after which some patch work has to be undertaken. Otherwise, a total relay is called for within 2 to 3 years, by which time the whole road surface is battered badly. Thus the lifecycle of a road in Chennai usually stretches from one monsoon to the next. World standards indicate asphalt roads last anywhere around seven years; why, then, are roads in Chennai of significantly lower quality, needing constant repair and frequent relay?…

Towards the end of the first decade of the 2000s, the Rajiv Gandhi Salai Information Technology (IT) corridor (formerly known as Old Mahabalipuram Road or OMR), became Chennai’s new face. The 45-km long IT corridor stretch that was launched with much fanfare to attract IT industries and thus bring in profit to the government exchequer is even today one of the fastest growing residential localities in the city. But take a guess at how much OMR residents spend on water and sewage every year? Approximately Rs 700 crore or more! For the residents, mostly IT employees living on the 20-km…

Disaster struck two nautical miles off Ennore’s Kamarajar port just before dawn on January 28 when two cargo ships--LPG-carrier** BW Maple bearing the flag of the UK’s Isle of Man and MT Dawn Kanchipuram, the latter loaded to the brim with petroleum oil and lubricants, collided due to poor inter-vessel communication. The LPG tanker, on its way out of the port, suffered a major dent. The incoming Dawn Kanchipuram was left with two holes that tore through it. Pregnant with oil and lubricants, the cargo ship released a considerable amount of the furnace oil stored for fuelling purposes** into the surrounding…