Caste-based social discrimination is not uncommon in the district even today as this unfair treatment can be seen in good number of places of worship being owned by different communities. In some places, members of the ‘upper caste’ won’t even take drinking water from the ‘lower caste’ people.
To smash this decades-old practice, a private organisation here opened a ‘thanneer pandal’ (public drinking water booth) in Tirunelveli Town on Thursday as part of its Tamil New Year celebrations with a conservancy worker, as chief guest, inaugurating the facility.
When members of Tirunelveli Town-based Annai Teresa Trust decided to open a drinking water booth to quench the thirst of the public in the summer, they unanimously decided to organise the inaugural function with a conservancy worker being the chief guest.
When she was approached by the trust members to inaugurate the drinking water booth, M. Mariammal was quite confused as the poor woman could not understand the objective of their initiative. As she realised their motive after a few minutes of deep thinking, Ms. Mariammal readily accepted their request. In the presence of builder T.T. Ramesh Raja, Adaikkala Annai Church Parish Priest Rev. Fr. Antony A. Cruz and Joint Commissioner of Commercial Taxes P. Devendra Boopathy, Ms. Mariammal inaugurated the facility, which would quench the thirst of the public during the hot days.
