Cooum restoration: No homes, five months after eviction

CHENNAI: When Kuppammal’s house at Rangoon Street was razed down in November last year as part of the Cooum River Restoration project, she hardly lost her composure. “Like everyone else there, we thought we’d be shifted to Perumbakkam. It’s a new place and I’d have to find work all over again, but at least we’d have a permanent roof above our heads and all our neighbours would be there too,” said the 26-year-old who had lived in Rangoon Street for all her life until the eviction. Hers was among the 275 families evicted from the stretch.

However, when all other families were moved by the Greater Chennai Corporation to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) tenements in Perumbakkam, she was taken to the Corporation’s night shelter in Lock Nagar, Chepauk, as her allotment order had not come.

For five months now, Kuppammal, a single mother and her two sons — Gowtham  (3) and Karthik (6) — have been staying at the shelter; she had left her job and her sons their schools.
“Now it’s been five months since my elder son stopped going to school. His teacher once told me he was a good student. Now, since he discontinued studies, all he wants to do is play. He has completely lost interest in studying,” said Kuppammal.

The Lock Nagar shelter is home to two other families like Rina’s — both evicted from Apparao Garden in Aminjikrai.

Said Appukutty, who was evicted from Apparao Garden with his family in December: “We have received no word as to when our allotments will come. When they brought us here, they told us it was only for a week.”

Appukutty’s wife Anusya, who recently found work as a domestic help, takes her two daughters to school, goes to work until 3 pm, picks up her daughters, takes them to the park and returns to the shelter at night. “We try our best to keep the children happy, without allowing them to worry about what would happen without a proper house,” she said.

Both families said the enumeration for resettlement had been done twice and for Kuppammal, thrice. “We have all necessary documents. We don’t know why it’s getting delayed,” Kuppammal said. When contacted, Corporation officials said that the issue was being looked into. “We are trying our best to get their allotments ready in a day or two,” the official said.