The stench from the sewage yard wafts through the air. Within a few tens of feet away, residents of Rainbow Garden in Hosur go about their daily chores, having resigned themselves to their civic woes.
The TNHB Phase VI housing colony for middle income groups in Hosur is caught in the crossfire of civic jurisdiction of sorts.
The 165 houses that fall under Phase VI of TNHB, are practically cut off from the amenities that Hosur Muncipality provides for the Municipal area.
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The Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) has not handed over the housing colony to Hosur Muncipality and has also not been able to provide the requisite infrastructure, allege residents of the area.
For the residents, who had purchased the houses on the promise of infrastructure by TNHB, this lack of civic ownership by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board has left them in the lurch with no basic civic amenities.
“Our civic woes start from lack of basic door-to-door sewage collection to lack of drinking water distribution,” says M.Sivaraj, one of the early buyers in 2008.
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“We bought the house for Rs.21 lakh, which included infrastructure payment. But, the TNHB has not provided any facility including basic amenities such as water, or sewage collection,” says Mr.Sivaraj.
The area relies on a borewell that is effectively dry over four or five months during summer.
While all other phases of TNHB were handed over to Muncipality, this phase has not been handed over, virtually cutting them off from drinking water supply.
“While the area has pipeline for Hogenakkal water, we do not get potable water,” says Mr. A.P.Suresh, Secretary, Rainbow Garden Residents Welfare Association.
The 165 houses that fall under this phase of TNHB are virtually orphaned between the Municipality’s lack of jurisdiction and the TNHB’s purported lack of funds to provide the infrastructure.
However, the houses pay a monthly maintenance fee of Rs.400 per house, and 50 percent of the houses have also paid a property tax to the Muncipality.
An otherwise picturesque open plot that was meant to be developed as a park has been left to use for shady activities after dark, allege residents.
According to G.Nandakumar, the Counsellor of the 10th ward that includes the Phase IV of TNHB, the Municipality was willing to take up the area under its civic care, if only the TNHB would hand it over to the Muncipality.
Procedure
Earlier, speaking to The Hindu , a senior officer of the Municipality said the normal procedure was that the TNHB would either provide the infrastructure, and the Municipality would take up its maintenance, or alternatively, make an infrastructure settlement to the Municipality and its maintenance.
When contacted, an Executive Engineer of TNHB, Hosur, said,he had joined recently and had no information.
For now, overflowing sewage, clogged sewage tanks and carcasses of stray animals pose a serious health hazard to the residents of this TNHB colony.