It is unnerving to stand under this roof, which has deep and wide cracks in many places. The staff have bravely worked for years under this roof for many years.
Welcome to the ration shop on Rameshwaram Road, T. Nagar, which is housed in an TUCS building, over a hundred years old. This ration shop shares space with a recently-constructed asbestos-topped outlet within the complex. While the latter is doing brisk business, the ration shop attracts only a load of complaints every day.
There are 1300 card holders, most of them senior citizens, who buy their daily rations from this shop.
Many of these card holders dread entering the facility, because the building’s fall is imminent.
Seventy-two-year-old Badrinarayanan has been a regular to this outlet.
“It is dangerous to go anywhere near the building.
It has been lying in such a dilapidated condition since many years ago and nothing has been done to relocate or reconstruct it for the sake of consumers and the staff here,” he says.
While Badrinarayanan buys only sugar from the ration shop, people like Manjula and Baby depend on it for all their provisions.
“We wonder how the staff working here are brave enough to open this place every day. The cracks on the walls and ceiling instil such a fear in me that I want to be out of this shop as soon as I enter it,” says Manjula.
It gets worse during rainy days. “The cracks are not the only problem. As the building is at a level lower than the road surface, rainwater easily enters the shop ruining all the provisions. Many a time, rice and sugar have got infested with worms,” says a staff.
The problems of this ration shop don’t end with the building. The surroundings are a big turnoff. A narrow passage way is the only entrance to the outlet and it is strewn with garbage and all kinds of waste.
“Since there is some empty space around the ration shop, many use it as a drinking spot. You can find liquor bottles thrown around the place. When the outlet is closed after the morning and evening operations, many use the compound wall as a urinal. When we come to buy, the smell makes it impossible to stand in the queue,” says Badrinarayanan.
Meanwhile, after repeated complains, there are talks of the ration shop being shifted to the other side of Duraiswamy Road.
An Amma Canteen near the Duraiswamy subway is being seen as a possible place for relocation.
But, card holders say, Rameshwaram Road is the most convenient place for them. They would prefer if the shifting was a temporary thing till the old building could be reconstructed.
