A 70-year-old man who came all the way from Alangiyam, near Dharapuram, to Collectorate on Monday to give a petition seeking old age pension at the weekly grievances redress meeting, collapsed while standing in queue.
He recovered after a long time.
Similar incidents have happened on previous occasions too as people coming with petitions, mostly aged and physically weaker, to get their grievances redressed were made to wait in queue in the sun for long time on the Collectorate premises.
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The meetings start well behind the scheduled time of 11am. Moreover, the petitioners have to go through multiple layers of procedures before getting serial numbers allocated to their petitions, and meet the Collector.
“It is a pity that common people are made to stand in sun whereas the officials sit either in shades or in buildings. Apart from that, it has been found that many people are coming again and again with same petitions as their grievances are not been properly addressed by the administration,” said N. Shanmugasundaram, president of Nallur Consumer Welfare Association, who is a regular petitioner at the grievances redress meetings. Following the collapse of Kanniyannan, the officials immediately shifted the queue to shady area.