The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Relocated but unsettled

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 02, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Relocated but unsettled

By Sandhya Soman

CHENNAI, FEB. 1. They woke up to a drizzle that drenched their small rooms. Day two started on a damp note for 93 families relocated from the north Chennai coastal belt to the temporary settlement at Kargil Vetri Nagar in Sathangadu near Tiruvottiyur on Monday evening.

The drizzle, which started around 10 a.m., soon turned to a steady trickle inside the roughly 100 square foot rooms. It lasted for more than an hour.

Jayanthi (18), who had moved from Poongavanakuppam, placed plastic and steel pots to collect the run-off. Water seeped through the roofs of the twin blocks, each consisting of 20 houses.

The first batch of residents to be relocated from Poongavanakuppam and Srinivasapuram residents from the R.K. Nagar constituency near Toll Gate, had also to reckon with the mosquito menace at night. They worried about the jobs their children lost while setting up home in Kargil Nagar. And the schools the little ones had to leave behind to roam around the marshy land where people used to cremate bodies until recently.

The soft earth sticks to your feet as you walk down the road into the settlement and alleys.

"If you look from the road (Ennore-Express Highway), this is a low-level area," says resident Kanaka.

Even her dogs, Juli and Johnny, preferred to stay indoors while Vikram (9), and his friends searched for a snake they had spotted earlier.

Dhanalakshmi was worrying about how to cook a meal without any grocery shop nearby. However, she has been given 5 kg of rice, sugar, mats, clothes, stove and a chimney lamp.

The drizzle interrupted the workers, who were getting ready more rooms and toilets. The workers had to find time to fit doors for some of the 300 rooms with concrete floors and light roofing.

Authorities in the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board will bring in the next batch, 400 families from Royapuram constituency, as soon as the Chennai Corporation finishes more rooms.

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