Vaigai riverbed and its vicinity reverberates with a slew of activity every single day. One cannot miss the sight of men and women (dhobis) washing clothes at the common washing facilities established by the Corporation at three places off the Vaigai in Bethaniapuram, Thathaneri and Pechiamman Padithurai.
In the background of film music coming from a speaker, these men and women beat, slam and thrash the dirt off the clothes - piles and piles of them - even while having a loud conversation among them. Under a hot sun, they sweat it out for a living. The dry Vaigai comes in handy for drying the clothes of all hues, mostly white, on the riverbed and on makeshift clotheslines which sway with the clothes in the gentle breeze. Once they are dry, the clothes are ironed. It is a backbreaking job.
These people collect dirty clothes from hotels, hospitals and households, who are their regular customers. They charge ₹6 or ₹7 for each garment for washing. Though they don’t make big money, still they are a contented lot. But they direly need better facilities to make their job easier.
Of the three common facilities, the one near Pechiamman Padithurai has 30 washing tanks, Bethaniapuram, the newest, has 12. The one in Thathaneri, built in 1969, used to have 25 tanks. However, after the road was widened, 10 tanks were razed and they have only 15 now.
All the three washing facilities have their own set of shortcomings.
Water shortage
Though all the three common washing facilities are located on the river bank, they depend on water from borewells sunk on the riverbed as the Vaigai is dry most part of the year.“There is no proper water supply to the washing tanks in Bethaniapuram because the yield from the borewell is poor,” says E. Mohan, a washerman who is in this profession for 30 years. “As the yield is poor, we wait for a long time for the tanks to fill up. In the end, only two or three of us can use the meagre water on many days,” he says.
The situation is worse in the one at Pechiamman Padithurai - two borewells have gone dry. The washermen depend solely on Corporation tanker lorries for the water. Although the supply is supposed to be free, the washermen allege that those supplying the water demand money. “We have no choice but to pay ₹150 for each tanker. Otherwise we can’t do our work,” says A. Periyasamy, one of the washermen.
Larger space needed
All the washermen have a common grouse. The common washing areas must be expanded to accommodate more tanks so that more of them can do the job. For 150 families, we have just 30 washing tanks,” says B. Sekar, who uses the facility at Pechiamman Padithurai. With no space, some of the families wash the clothes in pools of water on the river.
With the Corporation constructing a retaining wall along the Vaigai, those using Pechiamman Padithurai facility fear they will lose access to the river.
At Thathaneri, though there are only 15 tanks, the families using the facility were sharing them reasonably well among themselves until a year ago. “Each tank has two washing slabs. So 30 of us share the tanks among ourselves,” said S. Mahendran, who is in this vocation for three decades. However, a pipeline relaying work by Madurai Corporation resulted in demolition of two water tanks and a portion of the compound wall.
“The Corporation promised to reconstruct the tanks and the wall, but did not,” says 70-year-old E. Velu. “The place where the two tanks stood has become a pit, where water gets stagnated and becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes,” he says.
There are other issues too. At Thathaneri, the area surrounding the water tanks is full of weeds and scrap waste. At the Pechiamman Padithurai facility, water stagnation has caused algae growth and also mosquito breeding.
When The Hindu spoke to Corporation Commissioner S. Visakan, he said he will inspect the washing facilities and take necessary steps. He said the Corporation was exploring the possibility of constructing more common facilities.