Clear blocked toilets and provide them water

Life has begun to stink due to blocked toilets for residents of Rajiv Gandhi Colony on Queens Road. Children are falling sick and parents are worried. There is health risk which the civic authorities should immediately address.

Despite residents’ appeals, the local corporator has not bothered to send workers to clear the mess. It is only a matter of time before the smell hits occupants of posh offices and high-end houses along Queens Road.

Of the three common toilets meant for ladies, two have been blocked for over the last one month. All the three men’s toilets have been clogged, too. “We’ve been sending SOS to our corporator. But he is not responding,” says Vijay Kumar, a pastor living in a tenement in the colony.

Occupants of about 30 houses share this facility. “A few of our neighbours who have nice toilets in their own houses also come here, even when there is only one functional ladies’ toilet where the women queue up,” says an angry resident Sabeena V.

Though the toilets were built for the colony people, ‘outsiders’ too make use of it. “We can’t stop the public from coming here. But then, there is no running water. Obviously, the toilets get dirty. Then we have to plead with the municipality workers to clean it,” says Sunitha V, another resident.

But the workers rarely show up, and even if they do, they have to be paid and also given water pooled from every house.
“My daughter returned from school sick. Most children here have been complaining of discomfort, fever, infections. Please help us,” says Sabeena.

The children detest using the toilets. “My son cries and refuses to go in there. But what can we do? We have nowhere else to go,” says Kokila V, a mother of five. 

“The manhole is pretty old. It would crumble any day. And whenever it gets blocked, the workers just do some temporary fixing, and leave the silt around it,” residents say.

When the line is clogged, the sewage flows right in front of the long row of houses. “The water pipe is close to the sanitary pipe. We dread the day when we will see sewage, worms and other particles in our drinking water,” says Mary B, a homemaker.

“We want a new manhole to be put and the toilets to be cleaned every day. The broken door of the ladies’ toilet should be replaced. And the toilets need running water. We want our elected representative to provide the basics, what he had promised when he came here asking for our votes. We just want him to deliver,” says Lakshmi P, one of the residents.