Tamil Nadu - Tiruchi   

Residents seek pathway across defence land

— Photo: M. Moorthy

Violation: A signboard put up by the Territorial Army warning trespassers against entry into their training area in Tiruchi.

TIRUCHI: The rift between residents of Crawford and the Territorial Army (TA) in City over the former’s demand for a pathway across the Defence land continues to elude a permanent solution and seems to be snowballing into an unsavoury row.

The intermittent conflicts reached a flash point on Tuesday with the detention of a former Corporation councillor by the TA personnel and a road roko by residents that paralysed traffic on the busy Tiruchi-Madurai National Highway.

For several years now, residents of nearly a dozen colonies in Crawford have been crossing over the training area of the 117 Infantry Battalion (TA), The Guards, as a short-cut to reach K. K. Nagar, to reach schools, offices, shops and hospitals. A large number of autorickshaws, two-wheelers and even four-wheelers were using the narrow gravel pathways, ignoring the signboards of the TA warning against trespass.

Sporadic attempts by the TA to prevent the ‘unauthorised entry’ of the residents into their land have met with persistent resistance. The residents had made their own way to their colonies and according to the TA officers there were as many as 21 entry points into their land. The recent acquisition of a strip of land across the training area by the National Highways Authority of India, for laying a by-pass to connect the city with the four-lane Tiruchi-Madurai Highway, made for a convenient access route for them. Irked over the intrusions into their training area, where soldiers are put through training and physical fitness routines, the TA authorities recently dug trenches three to four feet in depth at the entry points to the colonies, which effectively prevented vehicular access to the Defence land. TA officials also resent the dumping of garbage and the flow of sewage into their training area.

The former councillor of the ward S. Selvam responded by ordering the digging of a trench across the entrance of the training area – a move viewed as an obvious retaliation by the TA. Though he and the Corporation officials claimed that the trench was dug only for repairing a drinking water pipeline, TA officials were not convinced.

Such acts of individual bravado aside, residents of the region want a permanent solution to the problem without letting the issue to be side-tracked. They point out that this was not the first time such a clash had erupted. And every time, the district administration and the Corporation have come up with ad hoc responses only.Though the Corporation has for long been trying to acquire the entire Defence land for establishing a bus stand, there has been no attempt to approach the Defence Ministry seeking permission for a pathway.

TA officials maintain that if the Corporation wanted to acquire the land, it could come through the proper channel and obtain a government order. Until such time, they had the responsibility to safeguard their territory. Many residents of Crawford concede that the TA had a right to protect its territory.

“We understand their point of view. What we seek is just a pathway across the training area so that our children and office-goers need not take a detour to reach K. K. Nagar,” says A. Subbulakshmi, a house wife of SIMCO Colony. She points out that most children from the residential colonies were studying at schools in K. K. Nagar region.

“Autorickshaw drivers who have been charging Rs.200 a month for a child for the school trips are now demanding Rs.400,” says S. P. Mohan of Emily Nagar. Most of the residents belong to the lower and middle income groups, he adds.

Mrs. Subbulakshmi observes that residents also depend on the hospitals in K. K. Nagar. “At times of emergencies, we could reach the hospitals in K. K. Nagar within a few minutes. But now it would take much longer .”

Once the by-pass road comes up it would be much difficult for the residents to cross over. Mr. Mohan suggests that the district administration could take steps to construct a subway and provide a single common pathway for all colonies across the Defence land.

With several service organisations and political parties joining hands in support of the demand, it is time that the district and civic officials took up the matter with the Defence Ministry to put an end to the vexed dispute.

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