more-in The service lane of the Chennai-Bengaluru highway near Poonamallee and that of the Chennai bypass at Vanagaram have something common - garbage. Mounds of garbage dumped on the sly cover most of the service lane on the road to Bengaluru leaving just enough space for a vehicle to pass at a time. “You cannot overtake on the service lane for about 50-60 metres near the point where people board buses to Vellore and beyond. And the stench is unbearable attracting flies and mosquitoes and making driving at night difficult. Thankfully nobody burns the garbage, otherwise motorists would be at risk,” said K. Mannar, who drives a load van to Poonamallee on a regular basis. At the Vanagaram toll plaza, garbage trucks bearing the names of different local bodies have been caught several times by National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) officials. “There is a lot of garbage on the side at several points including the spot where vehicles take a U-turn near the plaza. Dogs fight in the garbage and sometimes run onto the road making driving difficult. Some kind of liquid (leachete) from the garbage too runs onto the road,” said Murugan, an autorickshaw driver. The sides of the toll plaza at Sholavaram on the Chennai-Tada Road too are very dirty. “The plaza itself is badly maintained and on top of that roadside vendors dump garbage on the sides,” said Suresh K., a businessman. NHAI officials say that they will soon write to the concerned local bodies asking them not to dump garbage on service lanes. “It has been an issue that has been continuously dogging our roads. Local bodies constantly deny that they are dumping garbage though vehicles under their names are the ones that use our space to dump solid waste. “For the Vanagaram toll plaza, we are planning to remove the garbage and make the space available for traffic,” explained an official.

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