Roadside kiosks begin to ‘bloom’ in Besant Nagar

GCC’s smart kiosks start coming up at Besant Nagar and a few other areas to help vendors

Wrapping one’s head around Puya raimondii’s biological time-table is hard. There is an involuted ingenuity to it. A bromelaid native to sections of Andes in South America, it takes an inordinately long time to bloom. When it does bloom (decades after the previous blooming) it is always news — that is the power a process exerts on humans when it arrives after a protracted delay, a delay that seems justified, even beneficial. Just have to embrace the fact that certain things take time to reach their fullest potential — the puya raimondiis of the world; and in our immediate world, Greater Chennai Corporation’s kiosks in vending zones. The latter being marked by delays is a reality hard to comprehend.

Let us stay with the good news, which is that GCC’s kiosks for roadside vendors stationed at Besant Nagar Second Avenue are beginning to “bloom”, one after the other.

Over the last two weeks, they have been putting out petals of intent. They were first crowned with boards that trace their genesis to GCC. Following that, with the sheen of newly acquired paint, the kiosks began to glint in the sun. The most attention-grabbing sight in recent days is neither of the two, but a couple of kiosks that have opened their shutters for business.

Assigned to a vendor named Kamakshi, one kiosk supports a petty shop cum snack and tea centre. Flipping through the pages of the user experience, rainwater (thanks to the downpour on March 11 and 12) reportedly seeps through the openings that show up when the shutters on both sides are raised open in a horizontal position. The users believe a tarpaulin spread over the kiosk would keep rainwater out of the kiosk.

The other functioning kiosk belonging to a vendor named Nirmala sells playthings for children.

Sharbudeen, secretary of Besant Nagar-based Bharathiyar Small Traders Association, points out that the rear side of this kiosk faces a tall wall. Opening the rear door would become impossible if the kiosk is thrust into the space demarcated for the placement of kiosks. The rear door needs to be kept open as a shelter for the vendor from rains and the sun.

In addition, he remarks the vendors (those with kiosks far away from the bus terminus) keenly feel the absence of a toilet. The GCC toilet is located at the end of Besant Nagar Second Avenue close to the MTC bus terminus. He makes a case for the installation of small, portable toilets (at least a couple of them) along the pavement.