The Hindu 29.06.2010
Civic issues aplenty in Solai Nagar
Priti Narayan
| Even basic amenities have been denied to residents for a long time now |
— Photo: C. Venkatachalapathy 
Unattended: A canal at Solai Nagar in Puducherry which residents claim has not been desilted for years.
PUDUCHERRY: Solai Nagar has often been in the limelight, in the context of sea erosion and tsunami housing. But, the area paints a picture of neglect with even basic civic amenities have been denied to its residents for a long time now.
Many residents of Kallarai Veedhi do not have pattas for the land they occupy. Suseela, who has resided there for 35 years, is one of them. Officials from the government had come to measure the plots, but no action has been taken, preventing them from building pucca structures.
“All our houses have thatched roofs,” she says.
“We have appealed for a cement road and a streetlight, but in vain. The streetlight on the nearby Mariamman Street doesn’t work either, plunging the whole neighbourhood in darkness,” she adds.
A sanitation problem in the area has not been attended to for many years. Most houses in the area do not have bathrooms. The absence of a public toilet leads to people defecating in the open.
“Earlier, there were groves here. Now, they have been cleared. The children line-up along the canal, and the adults , along a street after sunset,” says Arun, a resident.
A canal to which all the sewage from Solai Nagar is directed has not been desilted in years, residents claim. With plastic waste clogging the canal, sewage stagnates in roadside drains. During monsoons, it overflows on the roads, causing inconvenience to people. This leads to mosquito menace and stench, residents rue.
“Untreated waste from a nearby hospital also finds it way into the canal. How can we live in the midst of all this,” Palani, another resident, asks.
Drinking water from a broken water connection mixed with sewage is making a pool in the Solai Nagar market.
According to vendors, the broken water connection has not been repaired for nearly a week.
The lack of bus facility is also causing lot of hardships to the people.
“Many years ago, a bus service in the area was a convenient mode of transport to go to the town. Now, I have to walk around two km to get a rickshaw to go to the town and buy vegetables to sell at the market,” Gowri, a vegetable vendor, says.
The people of Solai Nagar are upset about the “indifference” of the authorities concerned in addressing the problems.
The Solai Nagar chapter of the All India Youth Federation (AIYF) staged a protest on Monday, highlighting the issues. “There is space for building public toilets and an anganwadi for the children of the area. We have complained many times about the clogged canal too. But no initiative has been taken by the authorities concerned,” they say.
