Defaced and Missing Street Name Boards Impede Navigation in Pulianthope and Mylapore

Street name boards across Chennai, including on Powder Mill Road in Pulianthope and Arundale Street in Mylapore, have been left broken, missing, or heavily defaced by posters. This ongoing issue has made navigation difficult for residents, obscured the historical identity of local neighbourhoods, and left the Greater Chennai Corporation's (GCC) modern QR code-enabled street boards largely invisible.

Although Chennai is spending crores of rupees on city beautification, this basic civic necessity remains neglected. The city contains more than 36,000 streets, but most of their signages are currently damaged or covered with posters. These promotional materials are regularly pasted by political parties, event organisers, and local groups.

In many areas, the street names on the signages have become faded or entirely unreadable due to thick layers of paper and glue. This has turned the signs into eyesores and significantly reduced their visibility for people trying to find their way.

The neglect is highly visible in historic quarters of the city. On Powder Mill Road in Pulianthope, a street that carries a slice of colonial history in its name because the East India Company once manufactured gunpowder there, the street name is hardly visible on a broken signage. Similarly, Arundale Street in Mylapore, which was named after Sir A T Arundale, the President of the Madras Corporation in the 1890s, currently stands completely without a street board.

Under the Tamil Nadu Open Places (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act, 1959, the GCC has the authority to act against the defacement of public signages. However, enforcement of this act remains weak, allowing the defacement to continue. This weak enforcement has also rendered the GCC's highly publicised QR code-enabled street boards, which were touted as modern navigation aids, virtually invisible to local residents.