Another 20-foot crater: Perambur Barracks Road cave-in puts TVK government's civic record on trial
A 20-foot-deep crater opened on Perambur Barracks Road on September 30, damaging a sewer line — the second collapse on the road in weeks. As north Chennai's 50-year-old sewer network gives way, the cave-in sharpens questions about the TVK government's delivery on its infrastructure promises.
CHENNAI: A 20-foot-deep crater opened up on Perambur Barracks Road on Wednesday, swallowing a stretch of the busy north Chennai thoroughfare and damaging a sewer line — the second time in recent weeks that the road has given way, and a fresh embarrassment for a TVK government that came to power promising to fix the city's crumbling civic backbone.
Residents of Perambur and Pulianthope woke to barricades around the collapsed section, with traffic thrown into chaos on one of the main arteries connecting the area to central Chennai. The collapse follows an earlier cave-in near K P Garden in Pulianthope in September, when a large pothole over the sewage line forced the Greater Chennai Traffic Police to impose diversions until September 23.
The repeated collapses point to a deeper problem. North Chennai's underground sewer network — in places more than 50 years old — is being replaced in phases. But residents say the digging is quick and the restoration is not: dug-up roads are left uneven, strewn with loose soil and debris, and coordination between the agencies appears to be nobody's job.
The timing is politically awkward for Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay's government. Having promised to modernise Chennai's infrastructure, the TVK administration now faces the most visible measure of its record — roads that swallow themselves. Each new crater hands the opposition fresh material for the charge that announcements outpace delivery.
The Greater Chennai Corporation is yet to release a full account of what caused Wednesday's collapse or how long repairs will take. For the commuters who use Barracks Road every day, the question is simpler: how many more craters before the government treats the city's underground infrastructure as an emergency?