KARIMNAGAR: The plastic sheets that form the only walls of Kandukur Srinivas and Padma’s makeshift hut are simply not enough to keep the winter wind at bay.
For six months, a stretch of pavement beside the Income Tax office, part of the Smart City project, has been the closest thing they have had to a home.
Srinivas, now in his eighties, lies curled on a thin mattress. Paralysis has pinned him to one spot, robbing him of the trade he once relied on as a mason. Padma moves around him, adjusting the fraying blankets, trying to shield him from the cold that seeps through the ground.
The couple came to Karimnagar after years of drifting in search of work, Srinivas from Kandukur in residuary Andhra Pradesh, Padma from Kagaznagar in Komaram Bheem Asifabad district. They married after meeting here as daily-wage labourers, believing they had finally found a place where they could rebuild their lives. Instead, illness and poverty have left them clinging to survival on a footpath.
Locals stop by with food, clothing and the occasional utensil. These small acts of generosity keep them going one day at a time.
All we want is to die with a roof over our heads: Couple
Padma says she does not know whom to approach for help, only that she needs the state government to grant them an Indiramma house.
Her voice catches as she speaks: “We asked officials for an Indiramma house. We don’t even know how to apply. I just want him to spend his last days in a proper home which he can call his own.”
Every night, she lays out the sheets, hoping they will hold against the cold. Every morning, she begins the cycle of care again, tending to her husband, watching the traffic rush past them as though they are invisible.
When their situation was brought to the notice of the Department for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Senior Citizens and Transgender Persons, district officer M Saraswati said a shelter home under MEPMA was available. The couple could be shifted there if they were willing, Saraswati said.
For now, Srinivas and Padma remain on the pavement, waiting for help that has yet to arrive, hoping a door might finally open to them.