CHENNAI: There is plenty of action on the fabled sands of the Marina. Dozens of construction workers are busy giving final shape to beautifying the world’s second longest beach. Just a stone’s throw away, close to the coastline, tens of hundreds of families live in appalling conditions — crowded tenements in a thickly-polluted area.

Once the multi-crore rupee beautification project, presently in full swing, is complete, the Marina will resemble a plush open-air mall — complete with parking spaces, toilets, a play area for children, garbage bins, a food court, lawns, galleries, fountains and ornamental lights.

“The works involve enormous amounts of tax payers’ money with no matching benefits to the environment, while local fisherfolk continue to be exposed to unhygienic atmosphere,” says T Mohan, advocate and activist. Sample this: The stretch between the Light House and Foreshore Estate, comprising several fishing colonies, is littered with tonnes of plastic waste uncleared for months. The city’s coastline stretches for around 25.6 km — roughly 2.5% of the state’s coastline.

According to fishermen, every day, at least one of them is injured by broken pieces of bottles thrown carelessly on the beach by visitors and left uncleared. “Moreover, the tonnes of plastic waste endangers the safety and livelihood of the fisherfolk but no agency cares to pay a visit to clean the mess,” says M Jayaraj of Mullaima Nagar. The conservancy staff do clean the service road daily but take no pains to clear the waste from the footpaths and the sandy area.

The overflowing garbage from the bins, woefully inadequate for a population of 10,000 families, often ends up on the sands. There are only a couple of public toilets but plenty of fisherfolk colonies — Rajiv Gandhi Nagar, Mullaima Nagar, Nambikkai Nagar, Bhavani Kuppam, Duming Kuppam and Nochi Kuppam. Worse, the toilets are either unusable or have remained locked for years. So, men, women and children of the colonies use the beach as an open toilet.

The clogged sewer chambers of the slum clearance board tenements in Duming Kuppam have resulted in a puddle of dirty water on the service road. Locals have preferred several complaints but the situation has not improved much in the last two months. The recent rains compounded the problem with the sewage flowing on to the sands. “The situation will worsen in the coming days if things do not improve,” says S Somu, a vegetable vendor.

The locals dismiss the corporation’s claim of periodical clean-ups of the sands. The lone sand siever machine covers the Marina and Elliots Beach every three days but the stretch near Srinivasapuram is never touched, they complain. “It will spoil the fishing equipment kept on the sands,” says a corporation official. The local body has plans to float a tender for a sand siever at Rs 53 lakh soon, but it will be confined to the Marina and the Elliots beach.

“This is sheer indifference of officialdom. A responsible government should provide better living conditions for the poor instead of coming up with proposals such as an elevated corridor along the coast,” says G Devasahayam, a former bureaucrat and founder-trustee of SUSTAIN, a non-governmental organisation.