A recent article on the Hindu announced that the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust has been ordered to devise a plan for the removal of construction debris from the Cooum River. The Cooum has undergone several such clean-ups and restoration projects over the past four decades. In 2009, Deputy Chief Minister announced an ambitious Cooum restoration project, costing over 200 Crores.  Yet another massive river cleaning initiative was announced in September for 2010 to clean over 800 tonnes of solid waste from the river. Despite all the money spent and plans devised, the Cooum continues to be more polluted than a treated sewer. So where does all the money that is budgeted for these projects go? Is the Corporation doing an efficient job of cleaning the city’s water bodies?

Members of Exnora and environmentalists comment that many of these Cooum restoration projects are counter-productive, as they do not address the source of the problems ailing the river and its associated water bodies. Many believe the major contributing factor to Cooum’s pollution is the slums that are situated on its banks. Much of the focus on restoration revolves around clearing slums and beautifying the banks of the river. However, Exnora’s research shows that a mere 0.14% of the water pollution is caused due to these slums, while the major contributing factor to Cooum’s pollution are the sewage pumping stations and treatment plants that dump gallons of sewage into the river every day. The pollution Chennai’s waterways will worsen unless the government takes the initiative to improve sewer collection and treatment.

Transparent Chennai welcomes this guest post from Mr. Bakthavatsalam Narasimhan. We hope that more regular readers of the Chennai Kaleidoscope will also contribute!

Transparent Chennai recently created a new map of police stations for Chennai’s residents. Information on local police is scattered all over the internet but there isn’t a one stop source for this kind of data. And that’s why Transparent Chennai decided to create a layer that collates and presents all necessary police related information on a single map/layer. Let’s look at some existing literature on police and law enforcement in Chennai.

Chennai Police is categorized into ‘city’ police and ‘suburban’ police. Chennai and suburban Chennai (outside the corporation boundary but inside the development authority area) are two districts in the northern zone. The city has 9 subdivisions, 29 circles, and 119 police stations of which 27 are (All Women) police stations.[1]

While the suburb police have 3 subdivisions and 13 circles, 49 police stations of which 8 are All women police stations.[2] The city today has a total of 163 police stations.

A brief history of police presence in Chennai:-

The existence of police can be traced back to 1659, when the British engaged Pedda Naik to guard the town of Madraspatnam with assistance from peons. The board of Police was constituted in 1770 by the then Governor Josios DuPre in order to deal with public nuisance, and maintain public health and order. In 1771, Governor Stratton appointed a “Kotwal” to control prices of commodities in the market and to discipline tradesmen.

Later in 1780, the post of Superintendent of Police (SP) was created to supervise the markets and to reduce prices of provisions. In1806, Walter Grant became the first regularly appointed SP with three police magistrates. The police forces have gone through various changes and reforms not since then. While they were called the Imperial Police during the British Raj, today they are collectively called the Indian Police Force.

Standards: According to UDPFI(Urban Development plans formulation and implementation guidelines) standards, there should be one police station measuring 1.5 hectares between every ninety thousand people and one police post between every forty to fifty thousand people inclusive of residential accommodation (to keep the prisoners for a short while). There should be one district office and jail between ten lakh people and a police line for every twenty lakh population.

The Chennai metropolitan area has a population of 73.44 lakhs (2001 census) and163 police stations surpassing the standard requirement of number of police stations. However, they do not qualify the norms for requisite space indicated in the standard. Chennai has 12 district level offices and the largest central prison in the country in Puzhal. There are 2 police lines the suburban and the city police. Although Chennai does not meet all the UDPFI standards, it has a good police presence in the city.

Mapping: Although crime can be reported by simply dialling 100 on your phone, one still needs to go to the area police stationfor filing an FIR (First Information Report). Hence, we decided to create a platform wherein users could access all relevant information needed to file an FIR. Information containing address, contact number, contact person was gathered from different websites in an alphabetical order. Then all police stations (both city and suburb) were manually located and marked using Google Earth. Some of the police stations were already marked on Google maps and Wikimapia.  Using geographical information system, stations were marked on satellite images (Google earth). This was necessary to avoid confusion as several police stations were situated in a locality that did not bear the name of the area the police station is to serve. Example:  The Amjikarai police station is near the Anna Arch on the 3rd Avenue road which is in Annanagar area.

Since the location details were taken from other websites, authenticity is not guaranteed. We request our site users to kindly update us in case if we missed or wrongly marked a police station.

One can view this map through ‘Build A Map’ feature on our website. Clicking on ‘Police Stations Layer’ will give take you to this map. There are 163 police stations in all which have been categorised into city police, All Women police station, Suburban and All Women suburban police stations. The following chart indicates the data:

S.No. Type of Police Station Total Numbers mapped unmapped Name of the unmapped  police stations
1 Sub Urban 41 35 6 Madhavaram, Pallikaranai , Peerkankaranai,Red hills, Santhangadu, Thiruverkadu
2 Sub urban Women Police Station 8 3 5 Avadi, Ennore, Madhavaram, St. Thomas Mount, Tambaram
3 City Police 87 69 18 Basin Bridge, Dr. R.K.Nagar, Government Estate Area, Guindy, Harbour,Kasimedu, Kodangaiyur, Kumaran Nagar,Marina,Muthialpet, North Beach, Nungambakkam, Otteri, Pattinapakkam,Periamedu, Port Marina,Secreteriate Colony, Thiruvika Nagar, Triplicane,
4 All Women city police station 27 1 26 Adayar, Annanagar, Ashok Nagar, Aynawaram, Egmore, Flower Bazaar, Guindy, Harbour, High court, Kilpauk, MKB Nagar, Mylapore, Peravellore, Pulianthope, Royapettah, Royapuram, Saidapet, T-Nagar, Teynampet, Thirumangalam, Thousand Lights, Triplicane, Vadapalani, Vepery, Villivakkam, Washermanpet.
Total 163 108 55

Please help us map the remaining police stations, especially women police stations, through our user driven layer.

[1] http://www.tnpolice.gov.in/

[2] http://www.tnpolice.gov.in/chennaisuburbanpolice/

Roshan Toshniwal

Join us this Saturday to clean up and map the Valmiki Nagar beach. This is a citizen based mapping project initiated by TC for the the Valmiki Nagar Residents Association. The goal of the exercise is to supervise volunteers whose aim is to create a detailed map of the valmiki nagar beach. In addition to this volunteers will be conducting a waste audit, whose results will be mapped. Both mapping efforts will finally be added to TC’s website.

Date: 15th January 2011
Place: Valmiki Nagar Beach (the beach opposite 4th seeeward road in Thiruvanmiyur)
Time: 5 P.M

Please email siddharth.hande@gmail.com to volunteer.

Thank you,

TC Team

Constructed by the British during the colonial era, Mount Road is an embodiment of the development that has taken place in Chennai. One of the city’s main arteries, this 15km road stretches past some of the largest corporate establishments and Government offices.

Selvan Thandapani wandered the side streets along Mount Road and discovered that the ease of life and provision of infrastructure and services normally associated with development has not percolated to the voiceless residents who live on these streets. This photo journal captures a glimpse into the lives of the residents of ThiruvikaColony, one of the many poor neighbourhoods around Mount Road.
Themes by Elizabeth Mathew

Click here to watch – Residents of Thiruvika colony

Contributed by Selvan Thandapani, Centre for Development Finance, IFMR.

The team of Transparent Chennai sits in a comfortable air-conditioned office with a beautiful cafeteria, serene environment, excellent infrastructure with ergonomic chairs and clean, hygienic toilets. The last one on the list, i.e. washrooms, is something that can easily escape our attention. Many times I hear my colleagues say – “What an awesome cafeteria!”and “What a comfortable chair!”, but never heard anybody say that they are glad to have washrooms in this office. I suppose this is because most of us presume such basic needs and services to be in place. But what about other residents of Chennai, especially the less privileged ones – workers in the informal sector, residents living in slums, employees at workplaces without any access to sanitation? This is where public toilets come to the rescue of these not so privileged classes. Has the government succeeded in fulfilling these basic needs of its people? This is the question that daunted our team for a long time, and very soon enough became a new project, a new idea, a new reason for the team to get busy – ‘Access to Sanitation for Chennai Residents’

A few times when our office toilets are locked up temporarily for maintenance, everyone looks extremely worried and distracted. Now just imagine the plight of those workers, especially women workers, who are constantly worried about such things! How can they concentrate on their work or for that matter lead a hygienic and healthy life if adequate sanitation facilities are not provided to them? Transparent Chennai decided to find out how these people feel about this aspect of their lives.

1. Behind the scenes: Somya, Sam, Vaishnavi and Muthu.

The first step towards figuring out an answer is to have data to look at. One of our brightest interns went about the city collecting data on public toilets built by the Corporation of Chennai, and other private toilets, if any. Chennai city is divided into 10 Zones and the data told us that the number of toilets at present stands at 572. With each zone having a population of around 4lakhs, this number is quite disturbing. Further, while some zones have as many as 100 toilets, some barely have 20! This is all the more shocking. Never mind, we thought. Let’s go and talk to these people first. We chose Zone 4 from the list having the least number of toilets – 20 for our interaction.

Owner of a toilet poses for a snap

While the results of the survey/interviews will be disclosed later, I would really like to talk about our experience. First, the list given to us by the Corporation is far from being comprehensive. With only the street names with us, it was extremely difficult to locate these on the maps and Sam, I and Muthu had to sit with it for hours to figure it out on the map. Second, there were some street names which were at multiple locations on the map, making our search all the more difficult. But this was only the beginning. Once located on the map, the same had to be discovered in the field. Third, some of the streets did not even have a mention on any of the maps we referred to. So, we just went blindly to Zone 4 and began our search. I remember a certain Jagannathan street which we searched for almost an hour on the field. We kept going round and round the same roads and finally found this mysteriously hidden street to our relief. I am sure if asked to go back, none of us would have a clue about it. Probably the GPS points that we noted down at each location would come to our rescue.

Finally, the questionnaires had to be revised multiple times to suit our needs after taking into account the observations made on our first field visit. All in all, it was a really enriching yet tiring experience. The Chennai heat was gruesome and the rains only made the visits worse, with water clogging, traffic jams and blocked sewers. However, the people we interviewed were extremely friendly and welcoming and many offered to serve us tea and coffee in spite of their poor economic status. Children were really enthusiastic and grinned and laughed, probably more than I used to when I was a child. The people and their lives touched our hearts and made the entire experience warm and memorable. One thing which was pretty much obvious from the time we commenced this study is that, it is extremely difficult in this city to get any information, be it some basic information on public toilets.

Posted by Somya Sethuraman

It has been more than two months since I wrote the first of my walkathon diaries and life has changed a lot since then. First, my office has shifted from Teynampet to Kanagam, Taramani. Second, I also moved from a paying guest accommodation in Gandhinagar, Adyar to another house in Padmanabha Nagar, Adyar. Third, I have spent two more months in my very own city of beaches, with its amazing culture and simple people – Namba Chennai! :) All these changes mean that I have a new story to tell, a new walkway to talk about and an opportunity to blog on Transparent Chennai, a platform which brings together the residents of Chennai.

Scene: Garbage lying around in the open, kids going to school and, the new IIT Madras Research Park which houses the IFMR campus on the 10th floor in the background.
Photograph by Shweta Bhagwat,IFMR.

The new IFMR campus (my workplace) has relocated to the 10th floor of IIT Madras Research Park (a brand new building), somewhat close to one of the oldest film cities of Chennai – the MGR Film Institute. Another landmark would be the famous Tidel Park (TP) and Ascendas next to Taramani signal. If you are coming from Madhya Kailash (MK), take a U turn from TP signal and then the left next to TP, onto a long narrow road which takes you directly to my office. Instead of the hustle bustle of Teynampet, I now travel everyday to this very quiet and seemingly less polluted environment of the new IFMR campus. From the 10th floor, when you look at the city, you realize the beauty of it all – so many trees, water surrounds the most of the city and, unlike other metropolitans, Chennai doesn’t have too many tall buildings either.

The distance I travel from my home to office has decreased, but surprisingly, the auto fare has increased. The moment I tell auto annas to take me to my new office on Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR), they quote Rs 80. They all reason with me that it is difficult to get a sawari on their way back from the office premises because the area is isolated. The total distance I cover one way must be hardly 5 kms, and Rs 80 does seem too much and on most days I end up getting in an argument.

Another striking observation about my journey every day is the difference in the walkways and other infrastructure on OMR and Adyar road. While the OMR has an amazing uniform walkway (at least between MK and TP signal), Adyar has discontinuous and broken walkways/footpaths. The stretch between MK and TP is adequately lit, green, and houses three railway stations – Kasturibai Nagar, Indira Nagar and Thiruvanmiyur stations. For the convenience of the pedestrians, there are even footbridges to get to the other side of the road.

I notice the stark difference when I walk back home from MK to Padmanabha Nagar. The Adyar flyover signal doesn’t have a proper pedestrian crossing and one encounters traffic from all directions. It is always an ordeal and a constant tension to get to my house. When it rains, the situation is all the more horrifying. Due to improper footpaths, I am forced to walk on the road with potholes and puddles of water here and there. I really wonder why the city has such a bad drainage system? A few drops of rain and the traffic in Chennai come to a standstill. I really don’t know what to wish for – the scorching heat in Chennai but smooth traffic OR respite from the heat through the rains but traffic jams everywhere. Clearly, it’s difficult to wish for either.

Nevertheless, though relatively inaccessible, the new office is much more inviting due to its green and clean surroundings. At least when I am walking, I am not scared that a vehicle might hit me and even the noise and air pollution seem much lesser. My new home in Padmanabha Nagar is also decent and cheaper than my previous accommodation in Gandhi Nagar. I am slowly settling down in this new routine and wondering, what’s next?

The writer, Somya Sethuraman, is a part of the Transparent Chennai team and works as a Researcher for the Development Metrics team of IFMR, Chennai.