The two foot-over-bridges with escalators at Velachery-Taramani Link Road are around year-and-a-half old, but they look like they have been around for eons. The facilities, opened in August 2014, present a picture of neglect with their steel bollards – short posts that separate the pavement from the carriageway – either missing or noticeably damaged.
At Taramani FOB, two security staff were deployed to guard the escalators on both the sides of the road. But now, there is no one to keep an eye on the escalators.
“Initially, there were two staff to sweep the entire facility, now you hardly see them,” says D. Madhusudhan, a resident of Taramani, pointing to empty food packets lying on top of the FOB. The facility is often littered with torn clothes, used papers and bottles, say pedestrians.
Madhusudhan says the FOB was regularly inspected in the initial months and the supervisor even objected to hoardings being put up near it. “Now, you have vendors doing business from here,” he says.
The FOB at Baby Nagar, Velachery, seems better off than the Taramani FOB, but only slightly.
Residents who frequent the facility say children have a hand in parts of the bollards going missing. “You don’t get anything much by selling them, but kids are seen playing with them,” said a resident, adding that these steel posts were not needed.
Here too, there are no security personnel. Site supervisor Kesav says he is yet to get his salary for the last five months. “The security service was discontinued three months ago,” he says.
Last year, The Hindu reported that the private firm in charge of maintaining five FOBs in the city had threatened to quit if the State Highways Department did not pay the amount due to it.
Every month, Rs. 7 lakh is to be paid as maintenance charges to the private firm, which has to take care of the facilities for three years, said the report. But, it is yet to be paid, said a source. K.R. Kanna, who works in a firm at Taramani, says security is needed at the FOBs.
