HYDERABAD: If you want to look for a standard Old City colony look no further than Nawab Saheb Kunta. Rundown houses, crowded streets, irregular water supply, erratic power, non-functional schools and mostly working class below the poverty line families, make N S Kunta a perfect example of urban neglect.
N S Kunta, located 6 km from Charminar, comes under circle 5, ward 19. Its list of civic issues is long, but its cup of woes overflows, literally, during the monsoons. The dirty water from the sewage drains flows onto the roads and people have to wade through raw sewage.
“When we complain to the Metro Water Supply people they ask us for money to fix the drains,” says Ilyas, a resident.
The GHMC has placed huge 6X6 feet dumper bins for garbage collection which they clear only once a week. The accumulated garbage stinks up the place and is a source for disease.
N S Kunta has one urban health post which is in dire need of funds.
N S Kunta was settled 15-20 years ago in a low-lying area. It was inhabited mostly by migrants who had come to Hyderabad for work.
“There are roughly 52,000 people living here and 95 per cent are below the poverty line,” says Rashid Ahmed, a social worker who works for the Confederation of Voluntary Associations.
They typically work as rickshaw pullers, daily wage labourers and other petty jobs.
Amazingly, there are only four ration shops servicing 50,000 people. Two sell grain and the other two sell kerosene, resulting in long queues and frayed tempers. Even by the regular standards of government schools, the schools here are incredibly run down. The N S Kunta Government Primary School No 2 has two classrooms and two teachers for 150 students. When it rains, the school declares a two-day holiday.
Parents are not in a position to send their children to private schools and don’t mind if their children drop out of the government school because it means an additional pair of hands to add to the family income.
Rashid Ahmed estimates that there are 40,000 voters in N S Kunta. Though the Old City regularly records high levels of voting, nobody here seems particularly interested in or is aware of the GHMC polls. Maybe that’s because campaigning has not begun because all the parties are waiting with bated breath for the AP High Court’s decision on Wednesday on the GHMC polls. “Achha, are the municipal polls due,” queries a rickshaw puller before riding away with his fare. The Old City is solid Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen territory. An MIM breakaway group, Majlis Bachao Tehreek, filed a writ petition in the High Court alleging the presence of bogus voter IDs.
Rashid Ahmed himself estimates that there are at least 26,000 voter IDs across six wards that are fraudulent. “We estimated that there would be not more than 50 per cent polling in any election, but the bogus votes cast push the percentage to 70,” he said. Rashid Ahmed was part of the Election Watch during the just concluded Assembly/Parliament polls.
Should the polls go ahead as scheduled? According to other social activists here the GHMC doesn’t have the manpower to weed out the bogus voters. Plus, the polarised politics of the Old City means that whoever wins goes out of his way to antagonise his rival’s supporters. “But not having elections is also not good, how else can people make their concerns public,” asks Khayoom, who has done voter enumeration here for the GHMC. But back in N S Kunta, the residents don’t have streetlights or functioning borewells.
The water comes every alternative day for an hour and is dirty. It’s a wonder a Bholakpur like tragedy has not occurred. Those who can afford to buy filters while those who can’t, the majority, drink the dirty water.