Chennai: For more than a year now, dug-up roads riddled with potholes and cracks have been making it difficult for 65-year-old V Ramesh to go for his evening walks in Marakkayar Nagar. The roads were dug up for an underground sewer line project in Neelankarai and adjoining areas on ECR. In Neelankarai, barring Casuarina Drive, where prominent personalities such as actor-politician Vijay reside, most of the other roads, including Blue Beach Road, were dug up. “The project has been moving at a snail’s pace. On stretches where work is completed, roads are yet to be re-laid. No vehicle can commute on this stretch,” said Marakkayar Nagar House Owners’ General Welfare Association treasurer V M K Gopal.At least five stretches, including Kapaleeswarar Nagar 4th Main Road and Marakkayar Nagar roads, remain in a pitiable state. An engineer associated with the project said, “We are creating a sewer infrastructure from scratch in an area where people use septic tanks. Already, work has been completed on Blue Beach Road and Marakkayar Nagar. They have been handed over to the GCC for road-laying work. From our end, work has to be completed on prominent stretches such as Kapaleeswarar 4th main road and connecting areas. Steps will be taken to complete them in a month’s time, after which the GCC can take over. Only after completing the works on important stretches will we begin work on Casuarina Drive.”Some of the residents say the inconvenience was far too much to ignore. “They can’t take one year to finish this work. To avoid using Blue Beach Road, we take Casuarina Drive to get on the ECR. But this road is blocked during weekends, citing crowds at the houses of actors. We are forced to get back on Blue Beach Road. This is irksome,” a resident said.GCC officials were unavailable for comment. Zone 15 ward committee chairman V Mathiyazhagan promised to address issues at the earliest.
