Chittoor: Riksha Colony deprived of basic amenities

Chittoor: It is really disheartening to see that there are many colonies in Chittoor Municipal Corporation where the residents leading a miserable life with no basic facilities.

One such colony is `Riksha Colony' on the banks of Niva River meandering through the city where 300 plus poor families live mostly in temporary structures or thatched houses. Poor people from the rural areas in Chittoor district and migrants from various places, who came to the city in search of livelihood, put up their shelters in the vacant land on the river bank, which derived the name Riksh Colony as it was the riksha pullers who first settled here. Former MLA C K Babu was instrumental in getting power supply and also to some extent improved it with roads, drains and streetlights, 20 years back but later development in the colony left roads and drains

in shambles. The civic authorities totally neglected the colony which has not seen any development particularly after YS Jagan Mohan Reddy government came to power. In the recent flash floods due to heavy rains that lashed the district in two spells in November last year, many houses were damaged, while the damaged roads and drains are yet to be reconstructed. The government gave Rs 3,000 to each of the flood-affected which is not at all sufficient, Yuvaraj, a resident of the colony said.

Inundation due to flood water from Niva River is a regular problem here whenever there is heavy rains adding more to the woes of residents here and the authorities should take permanent measures to stop inundation, said many residents.

"The Corporation staff and sanitary employees comes once or twice in a month for cleaning the drains. All the drains in our colony are stagnated with water, breeding mosquitoes and emitting foul smell and the piled up garbage adding more the stink while power interruptions often make our life miserable here," a house wife Kavita lamented.

Many residents wanted immediate steps for construction of pucca houses, development of roads and safe drinking water.