KOCHI: When are we getting rid of the waterlogging mother? Is this how we are going to live the rest of our lives? asked the 11-year-old son of Asha Shinu, a mother of two and a resident of P&T Colony, while she was busy shifting their belongings to bed as rainwater started flooding her house.
"Our lives have been miserable for the past several years. Politicians care about us only during elections, but nobody has done anything to make our conditions better," said Asha.
The story remains the same in each of the households of the P&T Colony. Though the residents were promised better housing facilities under the LIFE Mission, it remains a distant dream.
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had laid the foundation stone for the housing project to rehabilitate the P&T Colony residents on the land of the Greater Cochin Development Authority (GCDA) at Mundamveli in Rameswaram village in 2018.
However, the work has reached nowhere. Over 80 families have been waiting for the promised home, but the project is likely to miss another deadline on June 15.
Meanwhile, the GCDA officials said that the work on two blocks is expected to be completed by July. "The column and beam erection of the first block has been completed till the third grid and the work on block two has reached till the fourth grid. The work on the deck sheet is also progressing," said the GCDA project engineer.
However, he said that the project won't be completed on June 15. "The new schedule would be prepared after a review meeting scheduled to be held on June 2. After that the final deadline would be announced," said the official.
Contrary to the statement of the project engineer, the counsel for GCDA submitted before the Kerala High Court that the construction work would be completed by June 10 and that all necessary steps for the relocation of residents of the P & T Colony would be taken without any delay thereafter. The submission was made when a case about the relocation of the residents of the colony came up for hearing.