Three days after cyclone Vardah hit the city, Poes Garden — where the residence of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa is located and which is used to get priority treatment — wears a windswept and unkempt look. It took two days for the authorities to even start clearing the debris from uprooted trees, residents say.
Sivaraman Sridhar, a resident of Poes Garden, says, “Had AIADMK leader Jayalalithaa been holding office and had she travelled past this road, the scene here might have been far different. The road would have been cleaned within a day. But this time, the cleaning had not started till Thursday morning.”
Before the cleaning began, the debris was pushed to one side of the road just to create bare minimum space for vehicles to ply, he adds. “Since there are a lot of visitors specially for this road, there was a traffic pile-up on some occasions. Some of them would just park the vehicle and leave too; so, the Corporation staff couldn’t even start the cleaning process,” says Mr. Sridhar.
Chennai Corporation officials said there was a minor delay because the trees had to be cut, a time-consuming process. “Unlike the floods last time when there was only rubbish, this time we have to cut every tree and almost every other lane in the city before clearing the debris. We will clean it up as soon as possible,” an official says.
One of the trees on Binny Road had fallen on a transformer, which delayed restoration of power supply.
Raghuraman R, another resident for over a decade says, “They started work last evening and temporarily provided power from some other source. Only on Thursday afternoon did they cut the tree and plan to finish the remaining work. At least, as a mark of respect for Ms. Jayalalalithaa, they could keep the road clean.”
