Coimbatore: A group of residents from Irugur blocked the entrance to the town panchayat building on Monday, complaining that they were being forced to pay a higher price for basic facilities like water connection, acquiring birth and death certificates and even for removing garbage from the locality.
About 120 people, including women, had arrived at the office shouting slogans. “We now have to pay Rs 250 to get four copies of birth and death certificates, while we used to pay only Rs 100,” said V Vijayaraghavan, a local resident and CPM secretary, who led the protests. “New water connections to houses in the area for which we had to pay Rs 4,000 now cost as much as Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 depending on the official handling it. The officials refuse to give receipt for the money paid,” he told TOI.
The protesters also demanded that the panchayat stop collecting money for removing garbage from households. “The panchayat, to our knowledge, earns Rs 1.5 lakh a year by selling manure from its composting station. Then why do they want to collect Rs 150 per year from each household? We already pay property tax, which has now been almost doubled. The property tax too should be reverted to its original rates because we don’t get any extra facilities for the tax we pay,” said G Kala, another protester.
The residents also complained about the railway goods shed in the locality. “Those employed there defecate in the open. When we asked them not to do so, they said that the facility lacks clean toilets,” said Vijayaraghavan. “The station also lacks a foot-overbridge, forcing railway employees and local residents to walk across the track. Our children have to cross the tracks to reach schools, which is very dangerous,” he added.
