Interior roads in ‘Smart Chennai’ in a shambles

Dotted with potholes and craters, and stagnant water forming a sheet above making them more dangerous for those on two-wheelers, the interior streets where a majority of the people reside belie the Greater Chennai Corporation’s tall claims that the city was fast turning into a smart city.

As the civic body is prioritising only the main roads (bus route roads), these roads are crying for attention. One of the main reasons for the poor condition of the interior roads is the lack of coordination between the Chennai Corporation and other service departments, including Metro Water, Tangedco and others.

According to Chennai Corporation data, the civic body maintains 34,893 interior roads and streets extending up to 5,623 km. Of these, 1,292.54 km are cement concrete roads.

“In most of Ambattur zone, the civic body laid new roads only a few months ago. However, road cutting has left many of these new roads in a poor condition. The Corporation should initiate patching of damages in large scale,” said S Suresh, general secretary of United Welfare Association of Ambattur.

He pointed out the workers leave the manholes higher or lower than the road level, making the ride bumpy. “Sometimes, motorists have to swerve their vehicles to avoid hitting such manholes and get injured.” Another common allegation against the civic body is that the contractors use the low-quality materials and lesser amount of bituminous tar while doing patchworks, resulting in the gavel coming loose.

In several parts of the city, the civic body had completed repair works in a certain portion of the road and left remaining portion damaged. For instance, Choolaimedu High Road was filled with potholes and road cuts for several months. The civic body finally started relaying of the road two months ago. “However, they repaired only a part of the road that connects Kodambakkam and Nungambakkam via Choolaimedu. When asked, the officials claim that the other side of the road belongs to another zone,” S Murugan, a resident said.

He pointed out that the road connects two railway stations and there are two schools on the road apart from hospitals.

M Kannan, a resident of Triplicane said that CNK Road connecting Triplicane and Chepauk is in an unmotorable condition, with no trace of a new road being laid in the past few years. Apart from the poor maintenance, another issue that residents point out is encroachments by vendors.

While the interior roads in the entire city are in a poor state, residents of north Chennai feel the condition of the roads in some parts in south Chennai is comparatively better. “Almost all the roads in Tondiarpet, Ezhil Nagar and others are completely damaged. The Corporation, without relaying the damaged roads, only patch the damages. Every year, they do patching,” said E Ramadasan, a northChennai-based civic activist.

He added that the contractors do not mill the old roads before laying new roads to cut expenses.

When asked, a Chennai Corporation official said that the civic body would conduct road restoration works after the end of the northeast monsoon every year, adding that the damaged roads would be repaired after the rains were over.

“We will usually allocate a certain amount of funds to repair rain damages. With this fund, roads will be repaired. As far as the road cuts are concerned, we are issuing tenders periodically,” he added.

In several parts of the city, the civic body and other service departments dig the roads without knowing where their lines are. “The officials should maintain a proper blueprint of underground lines so that further damages to the roads can be prevented,” Nagendiran, a resident said.

He added that once the cement concrete roads are dug, it is almost irreparable. “I saw some civic workers digging cement road in the wrong place. If they had a blueprint, the damages could have been reduced,” he added.

A Chennai Corporation engineer clarified that the interior roads laid with bituminous tar would last up to 3 to 5 years while the cement concrete roads would easily last for 15 to 20 years if they kept free from digging.

The civic body lays cement concrete wherever the road is lesser than 2.8 metres, the road construction machinery cannot enter, and traffic is less.

When asked a Chennai Corporation engineer about the reason for persisting with bituminous tar roads even though life span of concrete roads is higher, the engineer said that the cost of laying cement concrete roads is higher than bituminous tar roads. “The cost difference is more than three times. Due to the higher cost, we cannot convert all the roads into cement concrete roads,” the engineer said.

Even as the interior roads in the core city is in a dilapidated state, several parts of extended zones are still waiting for proper interior roads and streets.

For instance, Manali zone has 1,045 interior roads. Of them, 630 are bituminous roads and 279 are cement concrete roads. The civic body is yet to lay as many as 136 streets in the zone that was added to the Corporation to make it Greater Chennai Corporation eight years ago.