Located at just a stone's throw distance from the Tiruchi-Thanjavur National Highway, the modicum of a community hall at Pugazh Nagar in Kattur presents an appalling sight.
Surrounded by stagnant water serving as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other insects, it is long since there was any social gathering in the community hall constructed during 2007-08 with the constituency development fund of the then MLA K.N. Sekaran.
The building falls in the jurisdiction of the erstwhile Papakurichi panchayat in Tiruverumbur panchayat union. Open drains flowing along the streets in the vicinity of the hall cry for attention. The panchayat was recently annexed to the City Corporation.
School dropouts for whom classes are conducted at the community hall every day are indeed children of lesser God, locals lament. For, they are not only exposed to the obnoxious smell emanating from the stagnant pool of water, but also have also been denied of a lavatory, they reason out. Antony Raj, a daily labourer employed in an industrial unit close-by is unable to understand the rationale behind constructing a community hall without a water tank. “The plight of teachers and students attending classes without even basic lavatory facility is pitiable.”
Adjoining the community hall well within the atmosphere of stink perpetuated by pigs in the muddy pool is an overhead water tank catering to the drinking water needs of several localities in Kattur. The susceptibility of the stored water in the overhead tank to infection is anybody's guess. A middle-aged woman recalls that when the community hall was inaugurated with much fanfare, it was touted to be fulfilment of a long-felt need of the locals. “In fact, a sanitary complex here would serve a better purpose in the area where there are many poor families without lavatory facility at home,” she said.
People in the locality, in fact, anticipate a transformation as the area has been brought under the limits of City Corporation.
The eagerness of the locals to judge the attention that the civic body will accord to the spot stems from the fact that it has so far been just on the border of the city limits. “It was on the plank of securing developmental funds that the panchayat was attached to the city limits. We would definitely not brook step-motherly treatment,” said Vadivel, a shop-keeper.
