Driving down a path doused in the silvery light of a moon. This may sound good on a pages of a novel, but when placed in the context of a night travel on a smooth road with fast-moving traffic, it sounds like the daftest thing to do.
Unfortunately, that is what motorists on East Coast Road do, while covering the stretch between the Akkarai junction and the Uthandi tollgate at night.
With the lamps on the posts emitting light of low intensity, their drive is largely guided by the headlamps of their vehicles and the moon.
“It was scary to be driving on this stretch, alone at night. The light emitting from the lamps were dim and at Uthandi there were no lights at all,” says P. Radhika, principal of a school in Palavakkam, says of a recent drive on the stretch, while on her way to attend a surfing camp.
M. Augustine, a resident of Kannathur who works at a restaurant in Uthandi, says the light from the shops on the main road guides motorists to some extent.
Both residents and commuters taking the road want new lamps to be fixed soon, before any untoward incident happens.
Even the police want the stretch to be lit up soon.
“Often, cattle roam freely on the road and in the absence of lights, this can prove dangerous for motorists,” says the inspector of Kannatur police station, adding that they had installed LED reflectors at various junctions.
Although it is months since the Tamil Nadu Road Development Company (TNRDC) completed work on widening the stretch, beautifying the medians with plants, constructing bus shelters, work on fixing new lamps is still pending.
The electric poles are already up on the stretch, but they are yet to be provided with connections.
According to TNRDC, they have handed over the work on lighting up the stretch to the Greater Chennai Corporation.
“Generally when TNRDC takes up maintenance of a road we take up all the works, but in this case, it was decided that the project would be handed over to the Corporation,” said a senior TNRDC official, adding that they had paid the civic body for carrying out the work.
According to sources, the Corporation was particular about LED lamps being installed on the stretch but the TNRDC did not warm up to the idea and asked the civic body to take up the project.
Metal halide lamps fitted on over 120 poles have to be replaced with LED lamps.
“The lamps will be fitted on the same poles, just that the fitting would be different. We have started the work and hope to complete it within a week,” said a Corporation official.
