Pipes takes up commuters’ space at a bus stop in Porur

The MTC stopover at Sakthi Nagar in Porur on Mount-Poonamallee Main Road is wide, but much of out of bounds for buses and commuters.

Large-sized steel water pipes have been placed in front of the stopover, preventing buses from haltigng there. The new pipes are meant for a multi-crore underground water pipeline work aimed at carrying water from Porur lake to other waterbodies and to overhead tanks and water filing points maintained by the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board

The stopover had a concrete footpath. Now, due to the ongoing pipe-laying work, much of it is damaged.

The stopover is meant for buses heading for Porur, Iyyapanthangal, Poonamallee and Kundrathur.

For a month now, private contractors with Chennai Metrowater are laying pipelines between Ramapuram and Porur, a distance of around three kilometres, along the stretch towards Porur.

“Chennai Metrowater should have kept these huge pipes elsewhere. They should have been brought only at the time of actual work and not dumped on the footpath and bus stops along the stretch,” says K. Prakash, a commuter from Porur.

Scraped bitumen surfaces are dumped on the footpath. There have been instances of senior citizens suffering a fall at the bus shelter, while negotiating the pipes before boarding buses.

“We have no other place to store these pipes. They will be laid along the trench as and when required,” says a Metrowater official.