Lack of basic amenities worries Pallavan Nagar residents
Less than few kilometre from the Chintadripet railway station, Pallavan Nagar, beset with the amount of 700 household and 3,000 people with many of them are daily labours and women at least ten make their own living by cooking Vada, Bajji’ in front of their houses and children compelled to play on the muddy streets as there is no playground. The slum is also facing several issues including toilet shortage, water hardness and mosquito menacing.
Most of the residents doesn’t have toilet in their homes and has only one public toilet for the entire neighbourhood which is not properly maintained, often makes some of the residents to walk nearby area to loo and some also ends defecating in the open field, said Krishna Kumari, who resides in Pallvan Nagar for 16 years.
As the slum adjacent to the drainage coovun river, with the increasing menace of mosquito, people often fall into illness including my 12-year-old son, says 32-year -old Aghoush Basha.
Another resident Premila, 27, reside in the slum for 16 years says “number of street light (59, 60, and 65) has not working fore two months and now. It’s unsafe for women in the night to carry a torch light for any urgency matter as there people often chased by stray dogs with multiple disease in it. And we have made several calls to animal welfare association to pick up the dogs or at least vaccinate them, no progress have made yet.”
While other residents have denied the dog menace by claiming that dogs are guarding them. Last week, when Devi’s home was about to get robbed by an unknown person, the stray dogs barked and alerted her and helps them to hand him over to the police. Therefore, some of the resident believes that stray dogs have been an enormous help to the neighbourhood.
Ramya, 25, another resident who is living in the slum for 10 years says, “We had to get up early in the morning to fill water pots through street taps and it’s available for four hours twice a day. We receive only ten pots of water from cooking to bathing purpose. We need large volume of water at least in the summer days,” she also point out that water pipe often got damaged in which last month we (residents) each spent 35 rps to fix the water pipe.
When the time arrives some of the residents who don’t have basic amenities wants to dwell into government allotted areas like Kanagi Nagar, Ezhil Nagar while others refusing by claim that they have all necessity and work nearby area.
The area still requires great deal if improvement, living conditions are still harsh, having inadequate access of safe water, sanitation and other infrastructure, poor quality housing, and insecure of residental status.
