SANITATION AND SLUM AREAS A LONG STANDING HISTORY

Basic sanitation still remains a dream for slum areas, yet to be fulfilled!

                 

 Lack of cleanliness which remains an unsolved issue.

Residents of Thiruvallur Street have been long facing issues related to sanitation and cleanliness in their area due to uncaring attitude of municipal administration, causing deliberate health abnormalities, especially to children and old age people.

Diseases like chikungunya, malaria, dengue and other water borne diseases like cholera, typhoid, dysentery have been prevalent in this area. Problem is the lack of maintenance of proper timely disposal of garbage dumps by authorities and another issue is defecation. The government drinking water tank is located in a place where garbage is heavily dumped, mosquitoes, flies breed and pigs live and roam around. There are no public toilet facilities provided in the area. Even JIO sims are available in this semi slum area, but there is no proper sanitation.

                                        

                         Dumped garbage and leaking sewage a major threat in the area.

 People in this area are less aware about such issues, that they haven’t complained to their counsellor. Moreover, they are not aware about who the counsellor is, such that it was necessary to clarify through multiple sources. “Counsellor of this ward is Karupasami, but I’m not sure about which party he belongs to. As far as I know, he has been fulfilling his manifestations. I’m not sure about the problems with sanitations. But the area is really unclean and people falling ill because of that is not uncommon” said Geetha, a housewife who lives here.

Although there have been different issues in the area, provision of decent sanitation and cleanliness remains a prominent issue and a distant dream for the residents.  “I am not much aware of the manifestos this time, but never has someone included the cleanliness issues” said Babu, a resident of Thiruvalluvar street.

 “We have built roads for the area, increased the connectivity” said the area counsellor Karupusami. When asked about the sanitation, he said “It is the responsibility of the people who live here to maintain cleanliness of their surroundings. They must stop dumping garbage in the public places and must start using the public toilets. There is nothing much that we can do about this.”

So, hereby we get to know that most of the respondents were uneducated, lived in unhygienic and unhygienic and difficult conditions worked in the informal service sector and consumed diet low in protein. The crowding of people in marginal areas, the increased use of chemicals that pollute soils, water and air and growing malnutrition all contribute to the increase in diseases.

Fulfilment of basic needs of the public like giving to importance to healthcare and education, is something the local politicians and municipal authorities should look after, rather than making false promises of development in area like building roads setting up industries etc. during elections. Which doesn’t seem to be in priority list of mass public, especially the slum areas residents.

Even after 70 years of independence, our country has to face such problems of sanitation and cleanliness, although swach bharat mission is on the move ,it is yet far to reach the remote places of the country.