Dug-up Sarathy Nagar road, a nightmare for motorists

Residents of first Main Road in Sarathy Nagar are finding it difficult to even enter their homes. “We were told that the road is being dug-up to repair the storm water drain. We were happy because we always suffered due to water stagnation during monsoons. A functioning stormwater drain will make life easier for us,” says Hiren R., a resident of Sarathy Nagar. However, his happiness was shortlived as even after a month, work is yet to begin. “Driving and even walking on the first main road is a nightmare as only a single vehicle can move at a time. The commotion there slows down on the stretch. Students put to hardship The presence of a  school in the vicinity makes matters worse. 

Students of Bethel Matriculation Higher Secondary School have to walk along the dug-up stretch to reach the second street. “I’d let my children walk to the school earlier but now I ensure that I drop them as any kind of negligence could be dangerous,” says S. Venkat a parent. Raguram V, another resident says, “It had rained recently and the six-feet pits were filled completely. with water. After raising concerns, some official barricaded the area and filled it with mud. A few days later, the pits were open again and now we are back to square one. Traffic on  the other streets in the locality has been affected by this, say the residents. The businesses established on the stretch also suffers. “We were not informed anything in prior,” says Divya M owner of a food outlet in Velachery.  “One night we see the road being dug there and it remains like that for a month. Because of this our business drops by 30 per cent.”

“We are currently building a canal across Sarathy Nagar for the easy flow of flood water to Perungudi during the monsoon. However, the work on Sarathy Nagar First street is moving at a snail’s pace because of the pending work by the Highways department. Only after they finish the work on the  Taramani Main Road, we can link this to the storm water drain on this road,” says a senior official.