slums

The community outreach team at CAG recently learnt about the Government’s plan to evict 14,200 households from 58 slums located on the Cooum river banks in the guise of the Cooum River Eco-restoration Project. After a thorough perusal of the project documentation, we see it as a plan not to clean the waterway but as an excuse to raze the slums and develop the riverfront.

The promise of a pucca house with an attached toilet and bathroom along with other facilities like running water connections, electricity, etc. would seem like a welcome idea for any resident of a slum without any of these basic facilities. But it is not so for the residents of Konnur High Road slum who have been asked by the Corporation to vacate their houses and relocate to the tenements of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) in Ezhil Nagar.