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Tamil Nadu
An apology for a road: The growth of software sector has not made much difference to basic amenities in Perungudi town panchayat. 
TAMBARAM: If there is one locality that has witnessed a visible difference in a short span of time, it is Perungudi town panchayat. Perungudi was once never thought of as the number one destination for home-seekers in the space starved Chennai. Over the years, the Information Technology boom that was centred around Sholinganallur and Perungudi helped this town gain mileage with home seekers and software firms making a beeline . Located on the city’s immediate fringes, Perungudi has a flip side to its story of visible development with crumbling infrastructure and a vast majority of its economically weaker sections deprived of basic amenities. Rajiv Gandhi Salai (formerly Old Mamallapuram Road) cuts Perungudi town panchayat into two halves and massive software complexes dwarf the rest of the localities behind them. Roads in most areas of this town panchayat are in a pathetic condition and those inside the industrial estate are the worst that can be seen in any pocket dotted with industrial units. During monsoon, the entire industrial estate is covered with sheets of water. Town panchayat authorities argue that it is simply not within their means to improve amenities in the industrial estate. At the same time, they concede that the local body did receive a considerable amount of money in the form of taxes from the industrial units in the estate. Residents also regretted that the local body was not giving adequate attention to creation of parks and open spaces compared to other town panchayats. The condition of the Ayyan Tiruvalluvar Park in Rajiv Nagar was a pointer to this. D.Raman, Thiruvanmiyur Area Committee Secretary of Communist Party of India (Marxist), said that but for a few pockets of Perungudi that were served with drinking water tapped from nearby Palavakkam, the quality and quantity of water supply to most parts was far from satisfactory. Residents of Ward No. 15, particularly those in Telephone Colony, were putting up with acute problems of garbage disposal. But the worst of the problems are faced by several thousand families living in Kallukuttai. “The town panchayat authorities maintain they are unable to provide the much-needed help to residents of Kallukuttai in the absence of government support,” Mr. Raman said. Pointing out there are five wards in Kallukuttai alone, he said the locality lacked street illumination, proper drinking water facilities and roads and other basic amenities. Though the software firms have brought about a change in the skyline, there was no welcome development for residents of this town panchayat. Authorities in the town panchayat, which has an expanse of about 5 square km, said that at present there were only five software companies within the local body’s jurisdiction. Out of its annual revenue of nearly Rs.5 crore, a considerable amount came in the form of professional tax from employees of the software companies. The population in a span of seven years has jumped from 23,581 in 2001 to a little more than 45,000 at present and the requirements of the people are far more than what the local body could provide. Officials said they have approached the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board for providing drinking water and when it came through, problems of drinking water would be a thing of the past. The proposed underground drainage project would give a fillip to overall infrastructure development, they added.
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