For the past six Saturdays, close to 50 residents of two gated communities — The Atrium and Park View — are cleaning a Greater Chennai Corporation’s playground (Ward 181 — Zone 13 Adyar) at the intersection of Sivasunder Avenue and Kalakshetra Road in Thiruvanmiyur. In addition, they also clean the road around the park. As repeated requests to the Corporation to clean the playground were of no avail, residents have taken it upon themselves to carry out the work.
“With no proper maintenance, the place has become a haven for tipplers. Every morning, we find liquor bottles, food packets, plastic covers and cigarette stubs strewn all over the park. Our colony is losing its serenity. A board hanging at the gate says visitors are not supposed to consume alcohol or smoke cigarettes inside the playground. However, tipplers don’t seem to pay any heed to it,” says M.S. Bharath, a resident of The Atrium who is leading this cleaning exercise.
The volunteers are also persuading their neighbours to patronise the playground.
“Only when more local residents frequent the playground and get the most of it, would deviants hesitate to use it. Earlier, we were cleaning the playground in the early hours of the morning. Now, we purposefully choose to clean the playground in the evening hours, which is from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m every Saturday so that tipplers don’t come. Anyway, they enter the playground after we leave,” says Bharath.
Residents were upset when tree branches were not trimmed properly
“Trees that stand inside the park have branched out onto the roads. They need to be trimmed — both the branches overlooking the road and the ones found within the park. When we informed the Corporation about this, its workers trimmed the branches jutting out and refused to trim the part of the branches of the same tree found inside the park. They said that was the job of the parks department of the Corporation and they were responsible for the ones on the road,” says Bharath.
The 1.5-acre playground was earlier an open space reservation (OSR) land of The Atrium.
“We were maintaining it until 2006 or 2007, after which it had to be handed over to the Greater Chennai Corporation. When the OSR land was with us we were maintaining it well. We planted trees and maintained a garden. But the play equipment was installed by the Corporation.”
Earlier, in December 2015, following the floods, residents came together to clean the playground.
“After that, it is only now that we have taken up such an exercise, which we plan to continue. Further, we will paint the compound walls of the park with artworks hoping passers-by will not relieve themselves on the walls,” says Bharath.
He also pointed out that although the nameboard calls the OSR land a playground, it has swings, slides, and other play equipment meant for smaller children, which are all features of a park.
“Either, it should be provided with facilities apt for a playground or the Greater Chennai Corporation should call it as a park,” says Bharath.
In this respect, a Greater Chennai Corporation official says, “It is not advisable for residents to clean the playground due to COVID-19. Soon, we will take it up and clean the place.”
Bharath also says, “Earlier, the Corporation had entrusted with us one set of keys to the park. But, now as we have cleaned the park, it has got back the keys from us. We had to clean the park because people were having food and we faced the menace of rodents.”