The Times of India 11.12.2009

Removal of encroachments in Tambaram eases traffic

D Madhavan, TNN 11 December 2009, 04:02am IST

CHENNAI: For more than threee decades, pedestrians and shoppers have fought for space on Shanmugam Road in West Tambaram, one of Tambaram's busy stretches. However, on Thursday, it was a different looking Shanmugham Road. The Tambaram municipality razed down more than 75 illegal structures, mostly petty shops and kiosks erected by fruit-sellers that had been a feature of the stretch.

About 50 police personnal attached to the Tambaram police station and 25 municipality staff led the eviction drive. "Today's eviction is an ongoing exercise by the local body. More of such measures will follow in the coming days," officials of the Tambaram municipality told TOI.

Located near Tambaram junction, Shanmugam Road connects interior areas of West Tambaram with the Grand Southern Trunk (GST) Road, a national highway (NH 45). A large market at the entrance of the road, a chain of petty shops and hawkers had encroached on both sides of the road, resulting in traffic chaos daily.

"The stretch is as crowded as Ranganathan Street in T Nagar. Traffic congestion is a perennial problem here," said K Velmurugan, a resident in West Tambaram.

Out of nearly 150 shops on either side, municipality officials removed nearly 50 illegal strutures while another 25, mainly petty shops, were removed from Abdul Razzak Road, adjacent to Shanmugam Road. Most of the shops sold shoes or readymade garments. The removal of the illegal structures has now restored the width of both roads, to 66 feet.

Thursday's eviction comes two months after a similar eviction drive was conducted by the municipality on GST Road near the junction to ease traffic. However, the encroachments had reappeared sooner than later.

Deccan Chronicle 11.12.2009

Contractors pay ‘bribe’ for bills

Dec. 10: Contractors associated with the Chennai corporation engaged in construction of stormwater drains, parks and roads in city limits have recently started facing new road blocks while getting their bills passed with some and clerks and mangers in the corporation zonal offices demanding favours from them.

“Clerks at the Nungambakkam zonal office expect money for just making an entry about the bill and passing it to the next clerk. Usually only field officials expect that the contractors should grease their palms. But this is a new and unhealthy trend,” say contractors.

“Already bureaucratic hurdles and procedures haunt us; if this situation continues, no one will come forward to take up corporation projects,” another contractor said requesting anonymity.

A few months ago, when a similar complaint alleging that a few councillors of zone 8 prevented the contractors from taking part in the tender process was taken up with mayor M. Subramanian, he immediately summoned the zonal chairman and the local councillors and enquired about the issue. Since then there is no problem from the elected representatives in that zone. Now it is zone 7 corporation staff disrupting the bill sanctioning process and tender procedures, contractors said.