With sewage mixing with stagnant rainwater around their houses for more than a week, residents blocked a road and threatened to stage a black flag protest as Chief Minister M. K. Stalin is scheduled to visit the district on Thursday.
As knee-deep water is stagnating on the premises of most of the schools in the district, Thoothukudi Collector K. Senthil Raj declared holiday for all the schools while colleges functioned as usual on Wednesday. Si.Va. Government Higher Secondary School premises that houses the office of the Chief Educational Officer, was totally inundated.
“Most of the private, government and the government-aided schools are facing this problem even though motors are being operated round the clock to pump out the water. As groundwater level has risen almost to the surface level, pumping out water does not yield desirable results. So, it will take a few more days to reopen the schools,” said a headmaster.
Though the Corporation has deployed around 400 motors to pump out stagnant rainwater and is using earthmovers to dig trenches to drain water into nearby drainage channels, resurfacing rains neutralise all these efforts.
Consequently, residents of badly hit areas like Muthammal Colony, Ram Nagar, Rahmath Nagar, Athiparasakthi Nagar, Housing Board Colony, Ambedkar Nagar, Bryant Nagar and Chidambara Nagar have been living in the midst of two-feet-deep water for the past one week. The stagnant rainwater in the Corporation’s common burial ground opposite VOC College causes severe hardship to those who come there with dead bodies.
Agitated over the delay in draining the stagnant water, residents of Ram Nagar, Rahmath Nagar and Muthammal Colony, Ram Nagar and Rahmath Nagar blocked vehicular traffic on Ettaiyapuram Highway. After Ministers P. Geetha Jeevan and Anita R. Radhakrishnan, Dr. Senthil Raj, Corporation Commissioner T. Charusree and Superintendent of Police S. Jayakumar, who came to the spot to make arrangements for Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s visit on Thursday, pacified the protestors with the assurance that sustained efforts would be taken to drain the water, they left the spot.
Meanwhile, residents of Velankanni Nagar near Krishnarajapuram North warned that they would hoist black flags in protest against the Corporation’s failure to pump out stagnant rainwater mixed with sewage in their area. “Since the Chief Minister is visiting Thoothukudi, we have decided to stage this protest to attract his attention,” they said.
Dr. Senthil Raj assured that he would immediately send a team of Corporation officials to sort out the issue.
Rainfall recorded in the district was (in mm): Satankulam 21, Soorangudi 13, Kulasekarapattinam and Kovilpatti 12 each, Thoothukudi 11, Tiruchendur 10, Keezha Arasadi 7, Kayalpattinam, Vaippar and Kazhugumalai 5 each, Kadalkudi 3, Vilathikulam 2, Maniyachi 4 and Ettaiyapuram, Srivaikundam and Ottapidaaram 1 each.
