Balamurgan Garden and Customs Colony are among areas in Thoraipakkam that battle bad roads due to multiple civic works happening simultaneously. The images were taken on August 16, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PRINCE FREDERICK
What is worse than an essential need not being met? That need being met in a manner one did not bargain for. Here is an illustration from Thoraipakkam.
Resident Balu N is integral to a group of eight residents from Balamurugan Garden in Thoraipakkam that is reportedly tasked with turning the wheels of officialdom. For the past few months, this task has been more assiduous than ever before. And they are plugging away at this task with greater spirit than ever before, for two reasons. One, they can enjoy the full benefits of three basic services, long-awaited and now in sight. And more importantly, they are doing the official wheel-turning more intensely to make sure a horrifying side effect resulting from processes to create infrastructure to deliver those services, is arrested.
The amenities in question are: drinking water supply and sewage drain network by CMWSSB; and provision of a stormwater drain network by GCC.
Balu observes that CMWSSB started laying pipelines for drinking water in February 2025, and this project was joined by two others the next month, in March 2025, when GCC started constructing stormwater drains and CMWSSD, underground drainage system.
As a result, the roads in Balamurugan Garden as also Customs Colony and adjoining neighbourhoods resemble a test track.
Balu points out GCC can relay the roads only after NOC is obtained from managers of each of the three projects. The CMWSSB drinking water project got completed, he says.
The other two projects being mired in challenges relating to the home stretch, the NOCs for them are nowhere in sight.
“We have learnt that on account of GCC’s stormwater drain work, CMWSSB’s sewage connections to some residences got damaged. Restoring them will take some doing,” says Balu, adding that as for the stormwater drains themselves, the silt catch pits are yet to be constructed.
And so, bad road conditions are expected to continue.
And this worries not just residents, even occasional passers-by.
Anitha S, a resident of TVH Svasti located in a neighbourhood of Thoriapakkam that is untouched by this issue, was surprised at the state of these roads when she happened to pass through them en route to a destination elsewhere. And she brought the issue to The Hindu Downtown’s attention.
Published – August 16, 2025 05:38 pm IST
