Instead of maintaining the city’s playgrounds, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has parked its lorries and stored new garbage bins at several of them. Some of these are the Somasundaram playground in T. Nagar and the Kozhipannai playground on R.K. Mutt Road.
Residents have complained that the civic body has damaged the grounds and made them inaccessible for children, youth and elders in the locality.
Recently, the State government relaxed some of the lockdown norms and opened the grounds to the public. Youngsters were happy that they could start playing and elderly residents started doing exercises like walking and running. For the past two weeks however, the GCC has been parking its garbage collection lorries and new bins at the famous Somasundaram ground. “They have also dumped crushed old bins on the ground and a shamiana has been erected in the basketball court and recruitment of sanitary workers is going on there. Youngsters have not been able to enter the ground. The main gate has also been damaged,” said A. B. Muthukumar, secretary, Somasundaram Playground Civic Exnora.
S. Parthasarathy, a long-time resident living near the ground, said it was the biggest ‘lung space’ in T. Nagar and it was sad to see the ground in which he once played, damaged so badly. “The entire area gets polluted due to smoke from the lorries. At a time there are 30 to 40 lorries. We are not sure if the emission norms are being followed for these vehicles. We want all these vehicles to be removed at the earliest,” he said.
The GCC Ground on R K Mutt Road - Dr DGS Dinakaran Salai, is also in the same condition. “We have not been able to use the ground for playing any sport. People are not able to walk. We have approached civic body officials and local politicians. They promised to resolve the issue, but nothing has been done till now,” said Yuvaraj, a resident who lives near the Kozhipannai ground, and who used to play football.
He said that youngsters do not have any other place to play in. “We cannot play on the road. There are very few grounds left in the city. It is high time residents put their foot down and reclaim the grounds where they used to play years ago,” he said.
A senior GCC official said the civic body would look into the issue.