Complaining lack of basic facilities in their village, residents of Ramagoundanpatti near Alanganallur in Madurai district submitted three petitions to the Collector.
In their petitions, the residents complained of lack of ration shop, inadequate bus service and need for a mobile phone tower in the village. This is the third time they are seeking these facilities at the Collectorate. The representation for a ration shop was first made in 2012.
A. Selvakumar, an IT professional who works in Chennai said the villagers had to travel six to seven kilometres to the nearest ration shop in another village. Though there were about 350 families, ration shop has not been set up in the village, he said.
Another problem faced by the villagers is inadequate bus service which affected school children the most.
However, their major grievance is the lack of a mobile phone tower in the village. During the COVID-19 lockdown, the villagers faced network issues. People could not make phone calls and the children could not attend online classes.
Mr. Selvakumar said that he has been working from home due to the pandemic. He travelled to the nearby village every day to work online due to connectivity issue in Ramagoundanpatti.
The village is situated on a rocky terrain. The students tried sitting on boulders in the higher terrain in a bid to catch signal on their mobile phones to attend online classes but in vain. Now, the threat of the third wave of COVID-19 looms large. Therefore, the authorities have to take steps to erect a mobile phone tower in the village, he said.
Vendors’ plea
Roadside vendors made a representation to the Collector seeking permission to put up stalls on the renovated Periyar bus stand premises.
They said that prior to the re-development of the bus stand, they used to put up their stalls on the platforms of the bus stand. However, when the development works started, they were moved out. Now that the bus stand has started functioning, they should be allowed to put up stalls on the platforms in the bus stand, they said.
