The spectacular lines of liquor shops on both sides of the road may give you a heavenly impression of this erstwhile French colony in northern Kerala. But a close look at it will tell you the difficulty the people of this tiny town face today being under the Union Territory of Puducherry — or UTOP.
There are several issues that are giving the place a bad reputation and dubious distinction. And the local people are dejected, even angry. “The outsiders are spoiling the place,” says M Raghavan, writer and a long time resident of Mahe. “They come and do all kinds of fraudulent business here, making the place a hub of corruption.”
True, Mahe comes under the union territory; so only the central government tax is applicable here. This has attracted many, so much so that people from outside make it a centre of their operations. The best example are the trucks that come from Tamil Nadu, carrying poultry. There are hundreds of them that come daily to Mahe from the neighbouring states.
Well, the operation is simple. Once the truck reaches, the chickens will be loaded into smaller vehicles and sold outside Mahe — to evade tax. “We don’t have an anti-vigilance cell here to monitor these kinds of frauds. The police and judiciary are not active,” says C H Prabhakaran, a schoolteacher in Mahe. “For each and every thing, we have to go to Puducherry, the head office which is 630 km away.”
Think of the cumbersome legal process, and you cannot but think of the maxim “justice delayed is justice denied”. There is just one magistrate court. The jail is too small and can’t accommodate more than three persons. To file an appeal, one has to go to Puducherry, 630 km away. But the problem never ends there. “If you want to file another appeal, you have to approach the Madras High Court, which means you have to travel 150 km more. If it possible for an ordinary man?” says Raghavan. “It will be nice if we can approach the (Kerala) high court in Ernakulam, which is only some 300 km away,” he adds.
The problem with Mahe is that it doesn’t have a decision-making authority. All officers are appointed by the UTOP. “The officers,” says Prabhakaran, “take up the Mahe assignment as a holiday option. They come on Tuesday, work for three days, and leave for Puducherry on Friday. So if you want to get something done, you have to meet them either Tuesday or Wednesday. Getting an appointment is also difficult.”
Though the municipality election was held in 2006, the councillors are so far not given any powers. “The ministers and MLAs don’t want to share the power,” says Palliyan Pramod, a councillor. “They distribute widow pensions and other special allowances to people as if they are giving it from their pockets. This is actually a trick to boost the image of their party.”
Health is another field where Maheans are facing serious problems. The town doesn’t have a good hospital. Lack of facilities compels people go to Thalassery, the nearby town in Kerala, for better treatment. “We depend on Thalassery a lot when it comes to health. The facilities in government hospital are not up to the mark. It neither has a proper lab nor a blood bank. If you need good treatment you have to go to Thalassery,” says Pramod.
Even though the crime rate is not so high, deaths due to alcoholism is increasing day by day. Old-fashioned patriots are the most worried. “There are 72 liquor shops in Mahe town,” says V Sisupalan Master, president of the Freedom Fighters Organisation, Mahe. “Most of them are owned by politicians and bureaucrats, of course in others name. Consumption of alcohol is steadily increasing. Even school students have been addicted to this.”
Sisupalan Master still remembers the good old days when Mahe was under the control of France. “Those were the golden days. The formation of the Union Territory (in 1954) was a game played by (the then prime minister) Pt Jawaharlal Nehru to canvass the French citizens. Frankly, it doesn’t have any relevance now. So it is high time Mahe joined Kerala,” he says.
Master is not alone when he says this. There are a lot, especially the youth, behind him. “To eliminate corruption, you need a strong decision-making authority here, which is impossible in the ut set-up. So it is better if we join the state of Kerala,” says young and feisty K Anand, a college student.
mtsaju@epmltd.com