The plight of 400 odd sanitary worker families living on encroached railway lands near CMC colony has become even worse after the rains as the area they have been living for decades got inundated by rain waters.
Every time when there is a heavy downpour, the impoverished sanitary workers and their families have to be evacuated and sheltered in marriage halls or corporation buildings as their hutments are flooded.
Even though they have been allocated the tenements near Vellalore by the Tamilnadu Slum Clearance Board, the families are reluctant to move to the allocated tenements as their monetary conditions are much to be desired.
The Tamilnadu Slum Clearance board has given a notification asking the families to remit Rs.36,000 towards security deposit towards allocation of tenements in Vellalore.
“Our earnings are meager and we do not earn more than Rs. 200 per day. In this scenario, how could we afford to pay Rs.36, 000 towards security deposit? Moreover we are apprehensive to move over to Vellalore as it is a far fetched place and commuting to and fro to the city would be doubly hard, especially to sanitary workers who have to start work very early in the day ” say the sanitary worker residents of CMC Colony.
“And, also education of our children would also get affected as they are put in the nearby corporation schools in CMC colony area. Hence, the city corporation should consider our present plight and find an amicable solution for the resettlement of the families living in such unsanitary conditions” plea the sanitary workers who are caught between devil and deep sea.