Curbs gone, not shamianas: Erected to help cops enforce COVID protocol, they continue to eat into road space

Chennai

Cops were braving the hot summer as well, and shamianas were supposed to shelter them. Now, COVID curbs have eased and cops no longer occupy these shamianas. But for some reason, they remain, much to the discomfort of the travelling public.

These shamianas occupy more than half of the road space in some of the busy locations in the city, but police, for whom they were erected, seem to have no intention of removing it. These shamianas look like an enclosure in the middle of the road blocking at least two lanes of the usable precious road space.

“It was alright when there were not many vehicles using the road during the peak of the second wave. But now everything is almost back to normal and we don’t understand the need for such a set-up in the middle of the road, blocking the traffic flow,” noted a road user who frequents Thoraipakkam-Pallavaram Radial Road on which one such ‘police shelter’ is set up in front of NIOT gate near busy Dr Kamakshi Memorial Hospital junction.

Despite seeing the piled-up vehicles daily, the cops standing there seem to be in no mood in removing it.

There is another such structure on MRTS Road the stretch of Inner Ring Road that connects Velacherry and Alandur and one can’t even notice a police person under the structure. This particular stretch of road is already dug up on one side by the TNEB and most of the time, one lane is choked with motorists. All these limitations faced by road users are not bothering the police personnel who had not removed the shamiana from the middle of busy roads.

When contacted, a senior officer in Chennai police noted that these shamianas were erected for the comfort of police personnel and also for easy segregation of traffic. “We will review it with men on the field and take appropriate action,” the officer added.