The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Kuppam residents in two minds about shifting house

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 26, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Kuppam residents in two minds about shifting house

By Sandhya Soman

CHENNAI, JAN. 25. The fear of living by the sea is slowly giving way to the fear of moving away from it. Most residents of the fishing hamlets in North Chennai are worried that their livelihood will be affected if they move away from their homes.

Nearly 350 families are going to be relocated by Thursday to temporary shelters at Kargil Nagar in Sathangadu off Ennore-Manali Express Highway.

Right after the tsunami, they were eager to move even if it meant commuting by bus to their traditional fishing area — Kasimedu beach.

Fifty families paid a visit to Kargil Nagar on Pongal day. More than a week later, Powerkuppam Pallam and Pallavan Nagar residents at Kasimedu are not looking forward to shifting to Kargil Nagar. They are worried how they will fish away from the beach.

On Friday, Powerkuppam Pallam residents moved their shanties back to where their huts stood before the tsunami came, to make way for the container lorries on Harbour Entry Road.

Now they will have to collect their house tokens, unseat the `Periyapalayathamman' goddess, pick up their belongings and leave the Port Trust's land to reorganise their lives at Kargil Nagar.

The worries start there despite the Law Minister, D. Jayakumar, distributing monetary relief at the nearby hamlet yesterday.

"We will have to stay at the temporary shelter for six months. But we will move to the slum clearance board tenements only if they are near the Kasimedu beach," says Bhagwan, who was one of the first with a token for a shelter being built by the Chennai Corporation.

He and his wife Vanitha are fretting over how they will hit the sea early morning and later take the produce to the markets if they have to take the bus.

Gothandam plans to leave his gear on the beach and stay overnight if he has to find a place on one of the numerous fishing boats.

"We will have to come early. Otherwise, outsiders who stay right across the road (Ennore Highway) will get on to the fishing boats if we are late."

The impatience is palpable when 65-year-old Bhoopathi, her lined face glistening in the afternoon sun, says: "They say tsunami will come again on this 26th (Wednesday). But we aren't going anywhere even if the sea comes."

The official line remains the same: "We have got consent from the fisherfolk. And they have agreed to move to a safe place where they will eventually have a pucca house."

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