Chennai: The entire stretch of road along the Annai Theresa Nagar street at Puzhuthivakkam near Madipakkam in South Chennai is battered and uneven. Pedestrians have to cross a buffer tank by climbing a wooden plank to get to the other side of the street. Chennai Metro Water has set up four filling points here. Around 20 metro water lorries queue up in the narrow lane to fill up their tankers daily and making the road swampy in the process.
The residents of the area are agitated as this has been the condition of the road for the past nine months. Even if the corporation relays the roads they will get damaged because of the over usage by metro water tankers, they said. The tankers congest the road by parking in the residential lane from morning 5 am to 8 pm to fill their tanks. The constant honking also irks residents.
“Every day more than 20 lorries are parked here from early morning. There is no space for a single person to walk on this lane. Children and women are afraid to walk alone. The lorry drivers use filthy language at times. While two-wheelers have to wait for the lorries, four-wheelers just can’t enter,” resident S. Muthukrishnan said.
About a year and a half ago, there were only two filling points at Fourth Street and First Street. But nine months ago, Metro Water introduced two more filling points on Fourth Street. Since then the problem started, he said. S. Kandaswami a lorry driver from Velachery said, “I have been working here for the past five months. I get around '250-300 daily. Residents here have been complaining but this is the most convenient areas to distribute the water to nearby places.”
Drinking water from these four filling points is distributed to the nearby areas such as Pallikaranai, Medavakkam and Madipakkam. These lorries do around 200-250 trips daily and as a result keep the lane congested round the clock.
According to Raman (name changed) a resident, the tankers keep their tap open as a result flooding the entire stretch. “The electric posts are built so low that tankers would hit them and damage them, often causing danger to the residents. The lorries also hit a house and damaged the wall,” he said. Barring Annai Theresa Nagar area, the neighbouring areas have well furnished roads and do not have filling points of Chennai Metro Water.
