CHENNAI: For the last nine months, overflowing sewage has made life miserable for 30 families residing at the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board (TNUHDB) tenements on 7th Avenue in Semmancheri. This has rendered toilets at the tenements unusable, forcing residents to use public toilets located 200m away.
When TNIE visited the area, the air was filled with the stench of foul odour and the buzz of mosquitoes. The toilets in the flats on the ground floor were clogged, with fecal matter visibly floating. The residents, in an attempt to control the smell, have placed buckets over the toilet seats to prevent the stench from spreading indoors.
According to the residents, the issue began when the faulty pipelines started leaking, eventually spilling over to the narrow passages between the tenements. The stagnant water has turned green and the area is infested with mosquitoes, raising serious health concerns, particularly for children and elderly.
“This is a daily struggle. We can’t even use our own toilets,” said R Sanjay (48), a cancer patient living with his disabled wife and two young daughters. “We are forced to walk more than 200m to access public toilets for relieving ourselves and to take baths. With my wife earning only `3,000 per month, paying the `250 maintenance chargers to TNUHDB is difficult. But that doesn’t mean we should be made to live in filth.”
Residents allege that despite repeated complaints, TNUHDB officials have redirected the responsibility to the resident welfare association (RWA), which currently oversees maintenance. The RWA, however, has ignored the issue, citing pending maintenance payments from several households.
N Prakash (42), another resident, said, “Earlier, when TNUHDB was directly responsible for maintenance, they used to respond to complaints about sewage overflow or broken pipelines, even if we pay or don’t pay the maintenance fee. But, now the RWA refuses to act unless dues are paid, while we continue to live in unsanitary conditions,” he said.
Rahman Basha H, a local activist, said, “We don’t mind paying when there’s accountability. But how can people be expected to pay when they’re living in sewage and nothing is being done about it?”
A TNUHDB official in-charge for the area stated that, “The maintenance work has now been handed over to the RWA under the ‘Nam Kudiyiruppu Nam Poruppu’ initiative. Since a few residents are not paying the maintenance charges, the work must have come to a halt. However, unhygienic conditions cannot be ignored. Immediate action will be taken to resolve the issue.”