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Friday, Sep 21, 2007
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Tamil Nadu
Damaged roof of a house at Pudumai Colony in Erode. – ERODE: For every house we shall plant a tree – this is one of the famous tree campaigns all of us are used to, having seen it on the rear of buses, walls of buildings and in sign boards. The houses in the Pudhumai Colony, the Slum Clearance Board tenement in front of the Fire Service Station in Erode, however, seem to convey the message in a different way. Almost all of the 650 house in the colony has a tree, which, ironically, the residents did not plant. The trees are not on the ground but on the walls of the apartments. Near the leaky, broken and sometimes absent sewage pipes that carry water from the first, second, and third floors to the ground, the plants have grown well to take deep roots on the buildings’ walls. Whether the growth of the trees on the apartments is for good or bad is difficult to tell, but it appears that the roots are holding strong the otherwise weak structure. For, in several places, the cement plaster has given way and in some places the bricks too. There is not a single building in the colony that does not have a complaint. “All the houses are damaged. It is only the extent of damage, we the residents take solace,” says Premalatha, a resident who also represents the area – Ward 36 – in Erode Municipality. In her neighbour’s Rosy’s house the roof in a corner has almost given way to nature’s roof. On a network of rusted iron rods rests loose concrete chips. Pointing to the damaged area, Rosy says she is afraid that it might fall on somebody. This is the same lament that one hears from all the residents of the Pudhumai Colony. RentThe Slum Clearance Board construction is about 20 years old, says Ms. Premalatha. The Board collects rents of Rs. 45, Rs. 40, Rs. 35 and Rs. 30 from the residents according to the floors they live in, starting with the maximum for ground floor residents. She says many residents have not paid the rent for many years and the Board cites that as a reason for not taking up repair works. Ms. Rosy, however, has a different reason for not paying the rent. “I until recently paid the rent in time. But after a while I stopped paying because the Board did not heed to my requests to repair the buildings,” she says and asks, “Why should I pay rent for a building that is faulty and for which the authorities refuse to repair.” The response of the Slum Clearance Board officials, however, could not be obtained. Repeated calls to the authorities concerned to obtain a reaction failed.
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