8/7/2019 Southern Railway Colonies look more like slums

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c m y k c m y k

Chennai Saturday 15 January 2011

Hike in oldage pension

will benefit40,000 per-sons: Stalin

5

StatePM to inaugu-rate KeralaDevelopmentCongress onFebruary 11.

Rajesh Shar-ma is new MDof Cryo-SaveGroup, stemcell bank.

DC

DC CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI

Jan. 14: Following a majorfire that broke out in theearly hours of Friday incongested Royapuram innorth Chennai at least 60tenements were reduced toashes with people loosingtheir valuables. It took wawhile for the fire tenders todouse the fire and therewere no causalities.

Meanwhile mayor M.Subramanian, who interact-ed with the fire victimsassured them immediaterelief and consoled the fam-ily members.

He directed the revenueofficials to speed up theprocess and provide therelief materials and cashbefore evening.

The corporation officialswere also instructed to pro-vide temporary shelterarrangements and food forabout 200 people. Besides,the mayor directed the offi-cials to erect streetlightsand restore basic amenitiesthat were damaged in thefire accident.

In another function atRoyapuram Mr Subraman-ian handed over cheques forabout 100 beneficiariesunder maternity assistancescheme. Cheques withdenominations of `6,000each were distributed to thebeneficiaries.

Expediterelief, saysmayor

PreferentialbiomasstariffsChennai: In the advertise-ment feature AlternateEnergy Sustainability inIndia that appeared in Pg 7of edition dated January 14,please read the statement ofMr Santosh Kamat, co-founder of Auro Mira Ener-gy (AME) as, Understand-ing supply chain challengeswith respect to collectionand costs of Biomass rang-ing from `2,500 to`3,500/tonne acrossRajasthan, Haryana, Mad-hya Pradesh and TamilNadu would necessitatepreferential Biomass tariffsbetween `6.50 to `7/kwhr.

Railway colonies look more like slumsPANANTHOPE, PERAMBUR AND TAMBARAM COLONIES NOT REPAIRED FOR DECADES

GEORGE ADIMATHRADC | CHENNAI

Jan. 14: Southern Railwaymight be actively con-tributing to filling the cof-fers of Indian Railways,but a visit to the three rail-way colonies in the city,Pananthope, Peramburand Tambaram, calledhome by employees of rail-ways southern zone, por-trays a totally differentpicture.

These colonies exist intotal neglect, going with-out repair works for sever-al decades. Due to rail-ways not allotting enoughfunds for their upkeep,they bear striking similari-ty to the slums that linethe Cooum river andBuckingham canal, cour-tesy overflowing sewage,

garbage-strewn surr-oundings and cattle, pigsand stray dogs roamingaround.

Says Ms Saroja, a rail-way employees wife stay-ing at the first street ofPananthope railwaycolony, The primaryissue is scarcity of drink-ing water. The pipedwater is salty and worm-filled which no sane per-son here uses. A year ago,about 55 plastic tankswere placed in the colony.Till date the tanks remainempty and we buy waterfor our basic require-ments.

Her neighbour Rajesh-wari was more concernedabout the garbage removalsystem. Garbage truckscome only once in threedays and by then the dis-posal areas in front of ourhouses are full. Outsiderscome inside and dumpchicken waste, dead ani-

mals, silt from sewage sys-tem, which are causingserious health problemshere. Sometime back, oneof the residents daughtersdied due to brain fevercaused by the unclean sur-roundings, she said.

The drainage is cloggedresulting in backyardsoverflowing with sewage.The sewage treatmentplant announced withmuch fanfare now lies use-less. According to MrRavi, who resides in Per-ambur, many buildingsearmarked for demolitionare frequented by anti-social elements.

Mr K. Ramdoss, a civicactivist who has spentmore than 50 years inPerambur railway colony,said each tenant pays`3,000 to `4,000 as month-ly rent, yet there is nomaintenance.

I have not receivedany complaintsregarding drinkingwater from theresidents belongingto the three coloniesfor the past sixmonths. But yes, thedrainage systeminside thedecades-old coloniesare in worst condition.Southern Railway hasalready allocated `90crore for thePananthope railwaycolony to redo all thepipelines. We will sortout the issues soon,said S. Anantharaman,divisional railwaymanager.

response

A building (above) at thePananthope railwaycolony in Ayanavaram ina dilapidated condition.

The plastic waste andgarbage overflow in thebackyards of Panan-thope railway colony. According to residentsunhygienic surround-ings that haunts thecolony round the yearresults in serious healthproblems for them.

DC

PRADEEP DAMODARAN

DC | CHENNAI

Jan. 14: Collecting vintagephotographs is a hobby formany. But, 46-year-old An-and Kumar Bhowmick fromT Nagar is obsessed with it.He has so far collected over8,000 pictures, mostly frommagazines and newspapers.Half of them are photo-graphs of late chief ministerand matinee idol MGR.

It all started when Anandwas studying in class nine.At that time, I bunked classand attended a public meet-ing by MGR where I sawhim from close quarters.Since then, I started collect-ing MGRs pictures, saysAnand.

Over the years, Anand col-lected pictures of theAIADMK founder wherev-er he could find them. I cutthem from all possible ave-nues including song booksof MGRs films, he says.After a while, my interestspread to other celebritiesand political leaders fromacross the globe.

Today, Anands collec-tions include pictures ofKarunanidhi, Jayalalithaa,

Rajinikanth, MahatmaGandhi and even BarrackObama. My priced posses-sions are certain rare pic-tures including a clipping ofJawaharlal Nehru and LadyMountbatten sharing a pri-vate moment, he says. Theplastics retailers aim is tocollect one-lakh photo clip-pings of celebrities andevents.

Some day, I hope tomake a record in collectingused photographs.

Among the litter of shopsin Kasi Chetty Street,Anands little plastic uten-sils shop stands out. Theouter wall of his shop is fullof black-and-white picturesof MGR. A few years ago,some people threatened meto vacate this shop. It wasthen I decided to stick allthese pictures outside. Ihope my idol would protectme, he says.

When asked if he is still afollower of MGR and theparty he founded, he says,After MGR, my idol isTraffic Ramaswamy. I vo-ted for him during therecent Lok Sabha polls andconsider him my gurunow.

DC CORRESPONDENT

CHENNAI

Jan. 14: One in 10 pregnantwomen suffer from hyp-othyroidism, a recent studyhas found. Hypothyroidismis a condition when the thy-roid gland does not producesufficient hormones.

The study, conducted byAIIMS, revealed that theprevalence of thyroid dys-function in expecting moth-ers was high, with 6.47 percent of them diagnosed withsub clinical hypothy-roidism, and 4.58 per centplagued with the overt form

of the disorder.This statistic seems to be

an underestimate, as thyroidproblems are quite commonin women during pregnan-cy. The thyroid glandenlarges when a woman ispregnant, and when hypo-thyroidism is severe, she islikely to have a miscarriagewithin the first trimesteritself, says Dr KrishnaSeshadri, head of endo-crinology at Sri Ramachan-dra Medical College.

Women with untreatedhypothyroidism usually findit difficult to conceive, but ifthey manage to get through

a successful pregnancy, thebabys intellect is found tobe affected. Studies haverecorded a slight decrease ofaround 10 points, in the IQlevels of children born tomoms with hypothy-roidism, adds Dr KrishnaSeshadri.

While physicians earlierbelieved that the unbornbaby takes care of its ownthyroxin requirements, as itsthyroid gland is developedwithin 12 weeks, expertsnow stress on the impor-tance of the mothers hor-mones for the fetus well-being.

Hypothyroidism highamong moms-to-be

Vintage photoshis obsession

RARE HOBBY

Priests and devotees of Lord Jagannath rejoiceas the gaily-decorated float carrying deities ofLord Jagannath, Balabhadra and Subhadra start-ed from the Kapaleeshwar temple in Mylapore.

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fervour

C.S. KOTTESWARANDC | CHENNAI

Jan. 14: The Chennai corpo-ration has intensified tax col-lection to improve its exche-quer which is hit by SixthPay Commission recommen-dations and inflation. Taxcollectors have begun fre-quenting buildings withproperty tax arrears, goingdoor-to-door to improvecollection. Several tax col-lectors admitted that theywere spending sleeplessnights due to the intensifieddrive. Every morning, weare put on a deadline and arenow closely monitored bythe top brass of the corpora-tion. The work pressure ishigh, opined a senior offi-cial attached to the revenuedepartment.

According to corporation

sources, the civic body,which has been registering arecord collection of propertytaxes and professional taxesin the last few years, is set tosurpass its target fixed for thefiscal 2010-11 as the averagecollection of property tax hassurged to around `1.5 croreper day. The corporation hasfixed a property tax target of`360 crore and tax officialshave so far collected above`270 crores. And in case ofprofessional tax, `99 crorewas collected till Decemberagainst the target of `135crore, sources said.

Several governmentoffices are evading propertytaxes and the corporationofficials should focus onsuch buildings, said MrSaidai Ravi, Opposition floorleader of the city corpora-tion.

Civic body stepsup tax collection

At least 60tenements werereduced to ashesin the accident

with peopleloosing theirvaluables