Residents still helpless

Residents still helpless

The agony of residents of Lovedale Apartment in Ulsoor seems to persist, even after a week when City Express reported their sorry state after the rains.

It may be recalled that because of water logging caused by the rainfall, Lovedale’s basement was submerged under six-feet deep water. As a result, residents had to take temporary shelter in hotels or with relatives.

On following up on the present status of the apartment, City Express found that power has been restored and families were slowly settling down. But not for long says Santosh, who is still running from pillar to post to get a permanent solution. "We should appreciate BESCOM who took up the job on priority to bring back power to the apartment. But the reaction from BBMP is quite shocking as they have taken the matter very casually and are not considering the safety of residents. Two officers visited us on Monday and undertook a routine check and went back. Till today they have not taken any action against the builder who caused the mess," said Santosh.

However, a letter which was addressed to the principal secretary of BBMP has in turn been forwarded to the commissioner. "Thankfully somebody at the BBMP office has been responsible enough to reply to our email. However the people of Lovedale Apartment have fixed a date to discuss the problem with the BBMP commissioner and we will most probably be meeting up with him on  Wednesday. With some of us having taken leave from our office for almost ten days, we had to get back to work. Right now the families are back and it was only possible because electricity is back. How long can we stay at other places? We also have children who need to go to school," he said.

Apparently, the shifting of BESCOM switch board is costing the apartment a whopping `3.5 to 4 lakh. "This is just one part of the expense, which needs to be shared among the residents of the apartment. I feel the BBMP is hand in glove with the builder, otherwise it should not take so long a time to sort out the issue. To our surprise even the corporator is not ready to pick up our calls. We even visited her office but the people present there seemed too ignorant about everything. As common citizens, we are feeling helpless at this point," Santosh added.

Tulasi Ram, who spoke on behalf of his wife Bhuvaneshwari, Corporator of Ward Number 79 said. "I handle the operations of the area on behalf of my wife. We have not received any calls from any apartment people. In case, we don't pick up the call, they should at least send us a message for us to react," he asserted.

When City Express explained the problem about the Lovedale Apartment and how the residents believe that the reason for water entering the basement is primarily due to the ongoing construction activity in the second block, Tulasi explained, "We have to first spot the problem. We will take responsibility if it is a BBMP site. Even otherwise, if this is causing a menace to a few people in the area, we are ready to look into the matter. Let them first come and discuss the problem with us and we will do the needful."

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