Flood-hit elderly couple gets house

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Two years after the 2018 floods washed away their house at Muttathara, 80-year-old Maniyan and his 3-member family could now shift to the new house. The couple was on cloud nine as the former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy handed over the key of the new house built at cost of `7 lakh on Wednesday.

Shashi Tharoor and his team who visited the flood ravaged area happened to meet Maniyan, who used to sell tender coconut before he was paralysed, and took stock of the sorry state of affairs of the family that was doubled by the natural disaster. After Maniyan was confined to bed, his wife Vilasini, a 70-year-old small-time vegetable vendor at Muttathara market and their daughter struggled hard to make both ends meet. 

The youth wing of the party took up the initiative to build a house for the distressed family.
Despite her serious spine injury, former Youth Congress state general secretary G Leena and her colleagues at Muttathara worked untiringly to raise funds for the cause. V S Sivakumar, MLA, laid the foundation stone of the house on October 25, 2018. But the construction got halted by the intermittent rains of 2019 and Covid.