The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : No association to shore up their cause

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Monday, Sep 22, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

No association to shore up their cause

Vidya Venkat

Photo: Vidya Venkat

A Doomingkuppam resident points to sewage water having entered her home. —

CHENNAI: Slum-dwellers constitute 26 per cent of the city’s population, according to government estimates made in 2001. But, they are rarely able to successfully negotiate for their needs, as few of them have formed associations to represent their case before local authorities.

In contrast to those living in middle-class and upper-class residential areas, slum-dwellers do not have any residents’ welfare associations.

In Doomingkuppam, a fishing-hamlet-turned-slum near the Marina beach, those living in the Slum Board tenements as also huts nearby are forced to put up with raw sewage overflowing into their homes and streets. This is because a sewage pumping machine here has been under repair for several months now. Locals said that even after numerous complaints made to the Slum Board, there was no solution.

Antony Raj, a resident, said a number of hutments occupying the open space here were cleared with a view to expanding the sewage pumping facility four years ago. “Though the encroachments have been long removed, nothing has been done to fix the sewage problem,” he said.

Another pressing issue in most fishing hamlets and slums is the lack of proper toilet facilities. . In Doomingkuppam, women have no choice but to use an open ground nearby as toilet before sunrise. The habit of open defecation also makes them vulnerable to diseases.

J. Kosumani of Tamil Nadu Progressive Fisher People Association said livelihood was more crucial for slum-dwellers and, therefore, most of the associations they form address these issues first. Even the panchayat held in fishing villages restrict their activities to settling disputes only, he said.

Affiliation to political parties is, however, seen as a way of “getting things done” in most slums.

In Kaavangarai, a patch of 50 hutments near the Saidapet bus stand, residents said they had to earlier steal electricity from streetlights, but now the local councillor has provided them with solar lights. P. Shanti, a resident, said the installation of these lights had helped their children study during evenings.

In Periamet, some 300 SC/ST families have built makeshift tenements near the Nehru Stadium. They have thus far resisted the Corporation’s attempts to evict them, through their local union. Young adults from this area have formed a youth association fighting for getting pattas, but with little success.

Slum Clearance Board sources said the government tried to regularise encroachments in some areas and has resettled others in flats constructed by the Board. A large number of people living in the tenements default in paying rent and raising funds to meet their demands remains a challenge, an official said.

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