Nowhere to walk, with Anna Nagar footpath grabbed

CHENNAI: Around five new stalls have elaborately come up in front of Tower Park and Ayyappan Temple on the 6th Main Road in Anna Nagar leaving walkers and residents fuming.
Walkers at the famous Anna Nagar Tower Park were surprised to find vendors sitting in these stalls along the footpath opposite to the park and the temple.

Set up in a residential area, visitors on the way to the the park said that they were walking on the road after these vendors occupied the footpath. “I complained to the traffic police personnel that we have to walk on the road as the entire space was gobbled by the stalls. I simply got a response to contact L&O police or Chennai Corporation,” said A Surendran, a frequent at the park, and a resident of Anna Nagar.

“I first spotted them last weekend, and they have remained there since then, on the footpath,” Surendran added. He added that all the footpaths in Anna Nagar are encroached. “The wider the footpaths, the greater are the encroachments. Several cars and bikes remain parked along Shanthi Colony second avenue footpaths because they are wide enough to fit those,” he said.

A quick inquiry with the people running the stalls opposite Tower Park yielded that they opened the stalls in the run up to the festival of Onam, and will shut down, after the festival, next weekend.

“These are temporary stalls set up so that visitors to the temple can enjoy delicacies from Kerala,” said another resident buying from one of the stalls.

Corporation officials from the ward, however, said that they were not aware that footpaths are being reserved to set up stalls. “Permission to set up stalls was not sought from us. I will inspect and have them removed if the stalls are set up without getting permission from the zonal office,” said a zone-level official.