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From no-man’s land to sought after
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KNOW YOUR AREA Vaigai Colony enjoys the prompt services of a credit worthy councillor
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Photo: G.Moorthy
bustling The Vaigai Colony
Trace the history of majority of residential areas in the city and surely the land will turn out to be an erstwhile piece of paddy field or a marshy area thick with some wild vegetation. As the city is expanding, every inch of space appears to be eat
en up by commercial centres. Vaigai Colony is no exception to this.
Adjacent to Anna Nagar, it was just a barren land about three decades ago where people dared to live given its distance from city centre.
The colony was registered as a Low Income Group Colony in the early 1970s. It became the first Government colony to start construction in Southern Tamil Nadu and be inaugurated by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.
Two sides
The colony is established on either side of the Anna Nagar Main Road and is identified as Vaigai Colony East and Vaigai Colony West.
The residents’ welfare associations of the colonies named it Vaigai Colony as it was on the banks of River Vaigai, points out S. Jegannathan, councillor.
“Barely three decades ago nobody imagined that this place will become so sought after,” says S. Kannan, president of the Vaigai Vinayakar Alaya Sangam. His father bought about nearly three cents for Rs.12,000 and found it difficult to reach the house as the entire area was covered in wild growth of thorny bushy shrubs.
“We suffered then and now we enjoy the benefits,” says Mr.Kannan. Originally, the colony had 107 houses on the western side but the number has now multiplied with people constructing extra floors for renting purpose.
Transition
Though the LIG colony was constructed by the Government to provide a residing place to the poor, today the colony is full off well to do families. “The original owners prefer to sell the plots to affluent people to get extra bucks, he adds.
The residents here enjoy good entertainment, medical and educational facilities all within walking distance. Vaigai is not meant for the rich exclusively. It has something for middle class people too.
For rent, there are houses that come for Rs.2000 and above based on the number of rooms and facilities.
However, the groundwater level is receding but the colony gets corporation water on alternate days. Apart from these facilities, the east and west colony have its own temple an Amman and Ganesha Temples.
Though there are welfare associations functioning separately for both east and west, the only agenda of the associations is to organise competitions and celebrations during festival time so as to ensure that there are no grievances among the residents.
The dwellers give full credit to councillor. Says a resident, M. Parvathammal, “the Councillor acts promptly to resolve every issue.”
S.S. KAVITHA
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Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Coimbatore
Delhi
Hyderabad
Kochi
Madurai
Mangalore
Puducherry
Tiruchirapalli
Thiruvananthapuram
Vijayawada
Visakhapatnam
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