colors. Grant Duff, the governor of Madras who developed the beach promenade, recalls in his memoirs: Grant Duff christened it the Madras Marina in 1884, the same year when the beach promenade was created, on which he explains in a letter: In New India, the newspaper that was run by Annie Besant, the Irish theosophist and Home Rule advocate, the beauty of Marina Beach was described back in 1914. On 6 October 1914, Anne Besant wrote, She also added that Madras Future developments In January 2014, the corporation announced a makeover of the 2.8-km stretch on the southern part of the beach from Lighthouse to Foreshore Estate, including development of walkways, benches, a gallery, bicycle tracks, concrete roads, service trenches, rainwater trenches and streetlight fittings at an estimated cost of 400 million. The development would provide alternative accommodation to vendors of the existing market on the Marina Loop Road by commissioning of a modern fish market on the stretch. The loop road connecting the Lighthouse and Foreshore Estate, which is currently a 20-metre-wide road, will be converted to a four-lane concrete road barricaded on both sides with stainless steel pillared railings and will pass all along the Santhome coast of the Marina Beach. A 2.4-metre-wide bicycle track, a 3.3-metre-wide walkway and a 2.5-metre-wide gallery will be developed on the eastern side of the road. The western side of the road will have a fish market with cold storage facilities as well as a walkway. The corporation also plans to develop more than 300 heritage pillars, each 1.2 meters tall, on the western side of Kamaraj Salai opposite the beach. The uniformly designed heritage pillars will be made of granite and iron on the stretch from All India Radio to Swami Sivananda Salai. The pillars would replace the existing walls of various institutions to improve aesthetics around the beach. In 2018, the Corporation revealed plans to make the beach disabled-friendly. As of 2019, the Greater Chennai Corporation was exploring the feasibility of conducting water sports on the Marina beach. In popular culture Marina Beach has been featured in numerous Tamil movies, including the 2012 Tamil movie Marina that is entirely based upon the lives of child workers in the beach. The entire story and screenplay for the comedy hit film Kadhalikka Neramillai were conceived on Marina Beach and the "Enna Paarvai" song sequence in the film was filmed in this beach.