CHENNAI — Local IT professional Karthik Subramanian marked a personal milestone this Tuesday, celebrating exactly 15 years of living in a “rapidly developing” neighborhood while waiting for the municipal corporation to develop a functional way to remove his sewage.

From his luxury balcony overlooking the Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR), Chen—who purchased his ‘premium lifestyle’ apartment for Rs 2.5 crore—noted that the view of the sunset is only slightly obscured by the dust from the Metro Rail project, now entering its fifth year of ‘imminent completion.’

“When I moved here in 2011, the brochure promised a world-class IT corridor,” said Subramanian, while adjusting a bucket beneath a leaking ceiling. “The brochure was correct. I have a world-class view of the traffic jam that has not moved since 2024. It is a very stable investment.”

Official records from the Rectification Bureau indicate that Sholinganallur’s electorate has fluctuated from 6.98 lakh to 5.37 lakh, a phenomenon experts attribute to residents either being deleted from the rolls or simply being lost in the 70-minute commute between Pallikaranai and the local grocery store.

“The infrastructure is not lagging; it is practicing strategic patience,” said a spokesperson from the Ministry of Modalities, speaking on condition of anonymity from a building that actually has a municipal water connection. “By not installing streetlights or storm-water drains for the last decade, we have preserved the ‘authentic rurban’ feel that high-end buyers crave. If we fixed the potholes, the property prices might stabilize, which would be a disaster for our quarterly growth metrics.”

Despite the lack of piped water, real estate consultants report that Sholinganallur captured 23% of South Chennai’s total housing supply in 2024. Developers have responded to the lack of basic amenities by adding more ‘amenities’ to their own brochures, such as ‘Infinity Pools’ that residents suspect are actually just repurposed rainwater harvesting pits filled during the last three floods.

“The candidate from the 2011 election, the 2016 election, and the 2021 election all promised to solve the flooding,” Subramanian added, watching a local cow navigate a thigh-high puddle. “I am very excited to hear the 2026 candidate promise it again. It provides a sense of continuity in an ever-changing world.”

As of press time, the Ministry confirmed that a committee has been constituted to study the feasibility of a sub-committee tasked with reviewing the 2019 report on why the 2014 drainage plan was never implemented.