Double whammy for NTO Kuppam residents in Chennai

CHENNAI: The current two-month fishing ban has crippled NTO Kuppam, a 446-family-strong fishing hamlet near Kasimedu, which is yet to recover from the mass evictions it witnessed in October, 2017. With most families dependent on work in deep-sea trawlers, residents fear they won’t be able to pay for the houses they have rented until they move into the resettlement colony to be provided by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board. 

“The Rs 5,000 we get from the government during the fishing ban is sufficient only for food. Now we have the added responsibility of rent,” said PR Mahendran, a local leader. After the second phase of the knee-jerk eviction drive launched in October last year to make way for the Ennore-Manali Road Improvement Project, most families have decided to rent houses in the vicinity to wait for the resettlement colony which was yet to be constructed. 

Residents say that even those who found accommodation in the houses of relatives expecting the government to expedite the construction of the resettlement have moved out to rented houses. However, work has just begun on the 11-floor resettlement complex near the Ellaiamman Koil and senior officials of the TNSCB claim the `58.80-crore tenement would be finished only by January, 2019. 

“Since the building will use preset concrete slabs for construction, the work will be finished even earlier than the time specified in the tender,” Shambhu Kallolikar, managing director, TNSCB, told Express. 
But residents fear that they will never be able to get out of the debt hole that the evictions without resettlement have pushed them into. “Many of us are still struggling to pay off the debts we had incurred for safety deposits. The `20,000 which the government had given us as interim relief was not enough, with safety deposits costing more than twice that,” said P Maheshwari, a widow who has two children and her in-laws to take care of. 

When Express visited NTO Kuppam, it found a few makeshift tents with senior citizens cooking lunch. “Their children can’t afford to keep them (elders) in the rented houses. So they still stay here,” explained Mahendran, holding back tears welling up in his eyes. “During the last fishing ban, our neighbouring villages struggled to recover from the Ennore oil spill and now it is our turn.”