With rising temperatures and pollution, Chennai needs more green lungs, not more concrete. Nageshwara Rao Park in Mylapore was once a thriving, well‑maintained green space, acting as a natural sink during floods and heavy rains. Today, modernization works have stripped away trees, eroded vegetation, with massive patches of concrete being added everyday. The south face of the park has already lost its greenery, leaving bare surfaces where shade and biodiversity once flourished.

Parks should be health spots where people walk amid greenery. Instead, this renovation plan emphasizes seating areas, gazebos, and pavilions, with no clear walkway plan. A massive iron structure with a concrete floor—the so‑called community pavilion—now dominates the park. This could have been a greenhouse filled with plants and seating, but instead risks turning the park into a picnic spot prone to littering.

Children’s safety is also at stake. Play areas are traditionally sand pits or soft surfaces, but concrete is being laid even here, creating unsafe conditions for young visitors. A child coming down a slide should not be landing on hard concrete. The brief rains have already shown pools of water collecting on the non‑porous concrete patches that have been laid recently. 

We urge the Greater Chennai Corporation to halt further concretization, re-evaluate the whole plan, restore green spaces, ensure child‑safe play areas, and preserve the park’s ecological role as a flood sink.

Let us bring back Nageshwara Rao Park’s past glory as a true green lung for the city.