For T.P. Sivankutty, a retired government servant, the classification of Kochi Corporation as a pandemic hotspot could not have come at a worse time.
It has literally poured cold water on the 75-year-old’s hope of completing the restructuring of his house, which, hoisted on a slew of jack screws, remains in a precarious state.
Now, the house near Pottakuzhy is in danger of collapsing endangering even other houses in the neighbourhood unless the work, which remains halted since the enforcement of the lockdown on March 23, is completed and the supporting levers are removed before the monsoon.
“A Haryana-based company started the work of hoisting the house by five feet to protect it from flooding on February 18. Since then, 12 migrant workers, who were assigned the work, have been staying at our home” said Mr. Sivankutty who had initially moved into a friend’s home at Thammanam to monitor the work.
However, the transportation of fortified double compressed bricks from Valanjavattom in Thiruvalla for the work got stalled with the lockdown. Following this, he joined his wife who had moved to a rented apartment at Kottayam near their son’s place shortly after their house got flooded in an overnight downpour last October.
The family’s hope of resuming the work on Monday was dashed as it became clear that the relaxations in the lockdown were not applicable to hotspots like Kochi Corporation.
To make matters worse, the agency now wants to recall workers and deploy them elsewhere.
“With the doors unhinged, anyone could walk in and get away with the valuables inside if the workers are recalled now,” said Mr. Sivankutty who had to use all his persuasion skills to delay it, albeit temporarily, till April 24 when more relaxations in the lockdown were expected.
The property on which the house was built back in 1980 had a small drain, which in due course became a conduit to the Perandoor Canal, making the house vulnerable to flooding as it happened during the heavy downpour on October 21 last year.
Attempts to resolve the issue under the district administration’s anti-flooding programme Operation Breakthrough didn’t quite materialise, forcing the family to go for restructuring.
