Many neighbourhoods are getting wide, relaid pavements. In R. A. Puram and Mylapore and Luz and in Mandaveli.
This is in keeping with Chennai Corporation’s plans to give all city neighbourhoods smart footpaths, greenery and spaces for people to sit or relax on a muggy afternoon.
However, even as civic workers are relaying these pavements, people are using them to park their motor bikes, hawkers are making good this ‘smart’ space, food hawkers are finding neat spaces to sell to customers and stores are letting their supply vans to be parked on these wide spaces.
This is the scene on R. K. Mutt Road’s south end alongside the Chennai Corporation playground, on Venkatakrishna Road in Mandaveli and on P. S. Sivaswami Salai alongside the walls of Vivekananda College where civic work is going on at steady pace.
The mada streets around Sri Kapali Temple is a good example of a civic project hijacked by violators and Chennai Corporation is a mute spectator and has already turned it face from a situation where hawkers on South Mada Street took over pavements laid at great cost.
