THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: To the city’s newbies, Jawahar Nagar residential colony with its old world charm seems to be frozen in time. Indeed, it has 50 years of history being the first residential colony in Kerala and is about to hold its golden jubilee celebrations. However, much has changed and it is not the good old Jawahar Nagar anymore, say the residents with a frown.
They point out that more than 40 commercial institutions have set up offices in the colony. “We have started giving institutional membership. There are around 17 such members,” says N P Unnikrishnan, secretary of Jawahar Nagar Welfare Association.
One of the residents, Thomas Poulose, says, “One of my friends, during his morning walk, counted the number of cars parked on the road to be close to 200. The colony, which was once a quiet and calm place, now witnesses rush hour in the morning. The cars and school buses which enter the colony to drop children clog the road. The problem is, this place is not built like a large residential area.”
He should know. Poulose, while working with the Architecture Wing of PWD, had designed the layout of Jawahar Nagar. The design, which followed British Housing Scheme, had incorporated wide open spaces, with 6 m-wide roads, a playground and a shuttle court. In the original design, there were only T-junctions, so as to avoid traffic conflicts characteristic of four-road junctions. The colony had underground drainage and pipeline connections, which were a novelty in the 1960s.
And do you know that Jawahar Nagar was the result of a plan to keep Thiruvananthapuram as the capital city? “When there were talks about shifting the capital to Kochi or some other place, Pattom Thanu Pillai set up the City Improvement Trust. The objective of the trust was to develop Thiruvananthapuram to accommodate the additional population who would come in with the expansion of industries and commerce in the city,” says Poulose.
The trust identified areas to be developed as residential colonies. The land, which became Jawahar Nagar, was called Maracheenivila, named after the tapioca farms in the place. There was a Tapioca Research Centre. Its building is still there in Jawahar Nagar - the Jawahar Nagar Lower Primary School. Jawahar Nagar Residential Welfare Association was set up with 36 members on November 14, 1964. (And so it is named after Jawaharlal Nehru.)
Back then, land was sold at Rs 600-750 per cent rate. “It was a cheap rate. Even then no one was ready to buy plots here. In fact, some who bought plots here, returned it to the government, as they could not understand what good it would be. Today the plots cost Rs 30 lakh a cent,” says Poulose. He is about to publish a memoir titled ‘Lingering Memories About Jawahar Nagar Housing Area’.
Most of the second generation residents have left the colony, and some, the country. The association representatives have contacted some of the members through Facebook. Around a 100 former residents are expected to flock in, from various parts of the world, for the jubilee celebrations to be held on January 24 and 25, 2015.