Chennai: Less than 24 hours after Greater Chennai Corporation claimed to have cleared encroachments in a late Saturday night eviction drive, the T Nagar Pedestrian Plaza slipped back into its old ways. By Sunday evening, vendors reclaimed the stretch and vehicles were once again parked across the pedestrian zone – indicating that the entire eviction exercise may have been an eyewash.On Friday, TOI highlighted how the ₹40-crore T Nagar pedestrian plaza had become overrun with shop extensions, hawkers and illegally parked vehicles nearly seven years after its launch. As a knee-jerk reaction, GCC launched an eviction drive on Saturday. With police support, civic workers removed encroachments on both sides of the stretch between the Pondy Bazaar Police Station and Residency Towers.According to zonal officer (zone 10) P Varadharajan, nearly 80 encroachments were cleared during the drive between 7pm and 9pm. However, TOI found the shops operating as usual on Sunday evening, when footfall was high, forcing senior citizens, parents with strollers and children to manoeuvre through the crowded pedestrian plaza.P B Robert, president of Dr Natesan Park Walkers Association, said, “The stretch was not walkable at all. It doesn’t look like any drive has happened. Even in the afternoon, I could see many hawkers,” he said. “Day by day, the number of hawkers increases and so do the vehicles. The cleanliness on the plaza has also taken a toll,” he said.The plaza was envisioned as a pedestrian-only space for shoppers. However, over the years, the pavements turned into illegal vending zones, existing shops encroached upon the footpath, and indiscriminate vehicular parking forced walkers to play hopscotch.Varadharajan said GCC plans to install signboards declaring it a non-vending zone while specifying the penalty. “We have placed an order for the boards. We will place them in two days,” he said. He added that drives will be conducted regularly to remove encroachments.
