Squatters asked to vacate TB hospital premises

By Feroze Ahmed

CHENNAI, APRIL 23. The Government TB Sanatorium, Tambaram, has asked the squatters in its premises to vacate. Memos have been issued. But the occupants, some employed as sanitary workers, are refusing to move without provision of alternative shelter.

The hospital stated that the slum dwellers were illegally settled in Amritha Nagar Colony (ANC) inside the sanatorium premises. The memos were given to 15 sanitary workers registered as Class IV employees with the hospital, and seven retired sanitary workers. Several earlier notices to them had gone unheeded.

According to the slum dwellers, more than 150 families were living in Dr.Ambedkar Nagar by the hospital about six decades back. They were employed as sanitary workers or male nursing attendants.

They were asked to vacate in the Eighties to make way for setting up the Madras Export Processing Zone. ``They were literally thrown on the road,'' said Dr. K. Jaganathan, then superintendent of the hospital.

Dr. Jaganathan then arranged for them to move to the ANC but stated that it was a humanitarian gesture and did not mean that the slum dwellers could claim rights to the land.

Dr. C.N. Deivanayagam, who recently retired as superintendent, said the main problem was from retirees who continued staying in the colony. Some residents were also encouraging their relatives to set up their huts there, he said.

``Undesirable activities were going on, like illegal tapping of electricity and worse. Increasingly, they started interfering with the regular discipline of the hospital and started defying authority,'' he claimed.

Dr. P. Paramesh, superintendent of the hospital, said quarters would soon be built for 20 families. ``Squatters now employed as sanitary workers will be shifted there,'' he said adding that the construction of the quarters would begin next month.

``But there will be no compromise on the retirees; they have to go,'' he stressed. Eviction notices have been served on two retirees who he claimed were ``trouble makers''.

What is appalling is that the slum dwellers have had to live without any basic facilities all these years. Hospital authorities explained that facilities could not extended as the settlement was unauthorised.

But from the other side, the settlements were there because the hospital authorities had not made sufficient arrangements to provide accommodation for its employees.

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Section  : Southern States
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