CHENNAI: A fact-finding team of civil rights activists have recommended an improvement of civic amenities in Kallukuttai, an unauthorised slum colony that has come up on 350 acres in Perungudi.

The activists, under the aegis of the Chennai Slum Dwellers Rights' Movement, have demanded the immediate provision of civic amenities such as water supply, electricity, road, drainage facilities, garbage collection, schools and noon meal centres in the colony.

They have also demanded action against police officers who ordered the lathicharge on colony residents on May 30.

The residents were stopped by the police at Adyar when hundreds of them were travelling to Fort St. George on lorries. In the confrontation that followed, several persons, including policemen, were injured in the stone pelting and the subsequent lathicharge.

The team comprised R. Geetha of Unorganised Workers' Federation; Leelavathi of Penurimai Iyyakkam; Kalavathi of Centre for Labour Education and Development; Arul of Nirman Mazdoor Panchayat Sangam; K. Shanmugavelayutham of Chennai Slum Dwellers Rights' Movement and Lucy and Jose, both advocates and human rights activists.

The fact-finding team's report said the plot was part of the 945 acres bought by the State Government from farmers and allotted to the Education Department. A large part of the land was later developed as the Taramani Institutional Area.

Kallukuttai came into being after 1990 on a 350-acre plot belonging to the Directorate of Technical Education (DoTE) and the Postgraduate Institute of Basic Medical Sciences.

DoTE officials said the decision on the colony now rested with the Government, which would be taken keeping in mind the other forms of encroachments on Government lands.

Residents of Kallukuttai, however, said they had each paid between Rs. 20,000 and Rs. 30,000 for a plot to local leaders in Perungudi and Taramani.

M. Amaresan, a watchman who bought a plot in 1996, said: "I paid Rs. 20,000 to a `vathiyar' [teacher] staying in Taramani. He told me that if the Government asked them to move out, he was not responsible. He did not give us any papers. We thought we would at least have a place to live and so we moved in."

Colony residents alleged that local leaders in Perungudi and Taramani had divided the land into plots and had "sold" them. The residents were also critical of political leaders who promised them amenities before every election.

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