More parks in Chennai

While people generally are happy with the Chennai Corporation's announcement of 100 new parks, they are worried about improper maintenance many existing parks. According to the Corporation , t he parkks with innovative landscape, herbal garden and playground would come up on pieces of land, some of which are as big as 96 grounds in Elango Nagar of Ambattur. The new facilities would be in addition to the 260 such parks in the seven zones of the old city limits. The eight zones in the newly added areas have as many as 265 pieces of land that are suitable for development of parks.The seven zones of the old Corporation limits has about 260 public parks, 154 traffic islands and 103 centre median parks, maintained by the parks department of the Corporation of Chennai, many of which suffer poor maintenance. The largest among the parks in the city is the 358-acre Tholkappia Poonga, developed to restore the fragile ecosystem of the Adyar estuary.Chennai's green space is further augmented by a network of open spaces containing forests, prairies, wetlands, canals, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas along the city's periphery. But Chennai is having fewer parks (260 parks) compared to many other cities like New Delhi15,000 parks, Mumbai (1,300) Bangalore (721) and Hyderabad (709). Per capita park space in Chennai is very low, at 0.41 sq.m. (recreational green spaces maintained by the Chennai Corporation) which is less than other metros. While Chennai has green cover of 4.54%, it is 19% in Delhi, 6.8% in Bangalore and 9.48% in Hyderabad. However,the share of Chennai's green space is dominated by the Guindy National Park, with an area of 2.71 sq km, which covers a vast area south of the Adyar River.Some of the major parks spread around the city are Anna Park in Royapuram, Secretariat Park in Rajaji Salai, Murasoli Maran Flyover Park in Perambur, My Lady's Park in Periamet, Dr.Visweshwariah Tower Park in Anna Nagar, Jai Nagar Park in Koyambedu,Thiru Vi Ka Park in Shenoy Nagar and Nehru Park in Egmore, May Day Park in Centripetal, Independence Day Park in Nungambakkam, Mayor Sundararao Park in Egmore, Panagal Park,Natesan Park, Jeeva park in T.Nagar, Erikarai park in Nesapakkam, Sivan .Park( Dr.MGR Park) in K.K.Nagar , Dr.Nageshwara Rao Park in Mylapore.and ,Indira Nagar park in Adyar.
But members of residents welfare associations and civic activists say that many parks in Chennai are not properly maintained. They demand better maintenance of Chennai parks. Official apathy is said to be the main reason for lack of proper maintenance of the parks. Lack of a proper system to monitor park maintenance has resulted in decay of some parks , which have turned into vice dens. So the Corporation should take steps to properly maintain the parks.Dr.C.Murukadas , The Times of India, Aug 24, 2012