Hundreds of families living in Indira Colony in Khandal live in squalor, surrounded by open drains and garbage, putting them at risk of contracting diseases.
The more than 300 families living here, mostly daily wage workers including many of the sanitary workers employed by the Udhagamandalam Municipality (UMC), tasked with keeping the town’s streets clean themselves live in unhygienic conditions.
Indira Colony is surrounded by the Sewage Treatment Plant treating
waste water from the town, a slaughterhouse where pigs are slaughtered, and countless open drains festering with dirty water which serve as breeding ground for mosquitoes.
According to S. Barkathullah and his father, K. Sait, the open drains are a huge concern for people living here and they believe that the health of many residents here is being affected. “Many people fall sick quite often, and almost all homes here have seriously ill people living nearby,” said Mr. Barkathullah, who said that the mosquito menace had hit the habitations only recently. Residents are also dumping waste and garbage right near their dwellings, attracting stray animals and insects near the habitations and into their homes.
Another problem for the residents is the lack of toilets. While a few homes built individual latrines under the Swachh Bharat Mission, residents state that they are now in a state of disrepair and that the hundreds of families here have to use the municipality toilet nearby. M. Salma, a resident, said that the toilet closed at 8 p.m. and that most of the residents, including women and children, had to defecate in the open. “Sometimes, there is no water in the toilets, and we have to take water from our houses and clean it too,” she said.
The residents demanded more bins, better street lighting, more toilets and covers for the drains running near to their homes. Municipality officials said that both individual and community toilets were being constructed under the Swachh Bharat Mission on a war footing, and added that the other grievances of the residents would also be looked into.
