3-foot-low Adambakkam stn a challenge for police & public

CHENNAI: Many police stations in Greater Chennai Police jurisdiction have got brand new buildings, mostly planned and executed by the Tamil Nadu Police Housing Corporation. Even old buildings with heritage value are getting a makeover to look and function better. But that is not the case to be with S8 Adambakkam station.

One of the crowded neighbourhoods in South Chennai, Adambakkam is primarily a residential hub with many techies working in MNCs on OMR and GST Road living there thanks to its proximity with the downtown as well as their workplace. While posh buildings dot their jurisdiction here and there, Adambakkam police station has been functioning from a shanty for years.

“Our station floor is at least three feet below the ground level and

even during a short spell of rain, the first place to get inundated is our station,” said an officer working there, on condition of anonymity. While that’s the case during monsoon, it’s poor heat dissipation that makes cops sweat it out during summer; for both the walls and roof of their first floor are just metal sheets. “It gets unbearably hot and one cannot sit inside the station even during the night hours,” he added.

The officer said it has become a practice to shift the entire station to the first floor during monsoon and back to the ground floor during summer.

It is not just the cops who complain about the station’s ordeal, but the residents too. “I recently visited the station for the first time to complain about a cyber offence, but I was shocked to see how the staff work there. One has to climb down three steps to enter the station only to be welcomed by a dilapidated reception. When police work in such an atmosphere, we cannot expect them to treat the complainants pleasantly. The authorities concerned should do something,” said M Sampathkumar,

a software engineer from Adambakkam.

Cops at the station say that the TN Police Housing Corporation is not coming forward to rebuild the station as it is an unapproved plot. “But there are many vacant Corporation plots, but nothing has been done to find alternative land for Adambakkam station,” said a policeman.

When contacted, a senior police officer of Greater Chennai Police

said a proposal is in the offing to build a new station for Adambakkam and it would soon materialise for the construction to begin.