COIMBATORE: It has been over five years since the Coimbatore Corporation erected 19 posts in Kallukuli, where residents had protested against the lack of streetlights. However, the posts remain as such, without electricity connection, symbolic of official apathy to the area.
After 6 pm, darkness engulfs the Kallukuli area and people cannot go to their houses here, let alone visit the place, due to fear of anti-social elements.
In 2010, the residents staged a protest here, after chain-snatching became very common at nightfall, demanding streetlights. After days of protest, the Corporation erected 19 posts for lights and assured the people that lighting power connection would be provided within days. However, over five years since then, creepers cover most of the posts and the residents continue to suffer from the same problem.
Besides, there is another risk in safely reaching one’s house here after it turns dark. Such is the condition of roads that chances of falling into potholes is very high. There are 350 houses in Kallukuli, spread over 11 acres. In each house, two to three families live together in congested conditions. It is such an isolated area that the people here said, they don’t go out of their houses after nightfall.
“My father, who is elderly, came back late at night after work and fell down in a pothole as he couldn’t see it in the dark. The old people, especially, find it difficult to use the roads even during daytime. What then can be said about night” asked a resident of the area.
The people here have appealed many times to the Corporation to tar the road, but these have fallen on deaf ears. Asked about it, councillor G Lalitha Mani told Express, “The residents of Kallukuli are not the legal owners of the land. It is owned by some others. A case is going on in court about the matter. Because of this, we are unable to do anything.”