The residents of a couple of localities in Madipakkam have urged the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) and the Kancheepuram district administration to initiate action against the private operators who let out sewage near their houses. Noting that they would not hesitate to mobilise public support and launch an intense stir against the menace, the residents of Lakshmi Nagar and Alaiyamman Nagar attributed the problems to the inability of administrative mechanism of their rural local body to tackle civic problems of such massive proportions. The members of civic groups in the two localities have documented the problem of private tankers letting out sewage into vacant plots located amidst several houses. The residents said the tankers would be parked on the road side and long hosepipes connected to them would drain sewage into the vacant plots. The shocked residents said that it was illegal to discharge sewage in any open space and wondered how the private operators could commit such an offence in a residential locality. Such problems were also reported in Ram Nagar, they said. They said it had become obvious that the Madipakkam village panchayat had failed to keep a check on the menace caused by the sewage tanker operators. They pointed out to a manifesto released prior to the elections to the local bodies by candidates for the post of ward members who assured a regulation of tanker operators, who indulged in fleecing the customer while cleaning septic tanks of houses. But they remained empty promises as in less than two years the charges for cleaning septic tanks had risen from around Rs.400 to more than Rs.700 per load. When contacted, a tanker operator said they would usually let out sewage in open places in scarcely populated localities in the outskirts, but mistakes occurred at times. Officials of the TNPCB maintained that tanker operators had to let out sewage only in treatment plants in Perungudi and that letting them out anywhere else was a punishable offence. The residents said Madipakkam had become a suburb with a plethora of problems even more than its dense population. Madipakkam had all the characteristics to be declared as an urban local body, but its present status of a village panchayat was the woes of tax-payers. In the absence of sanitary and engineering departments, the village panchayats were at the mercy of the panchayat unions (St. Thomas Mount Block in this case) for assistance to improve standards of hygiene. The staff at St. Thomas Mount Block said instructions were clear to staff of all village panchayats to prevent letting out of sewage in open places.