CHENNAI: Whenever civic agencies begin digging the roads for improvement works, there is a strong possibility that something else can go wrong, as the residents of Puzhuthivakkam have found out.The Chennai Metro Water Board began digging up the roads in Ram Nagar in Puzhuthivakkam, one of Chennai’s rapidly growing areas, to lay pipe lines for drinking water supply to the residents in April. But while doing so, the workers snapped the optic fibre cables laid by the BSNL for telephone and internet connections, rendering almost the entire Ram Nagar incommunicado.The residents of the area have faced immense problems for the past month.Manoj, a resident, alleged that most people have lost their landline and broadband connections due to the haphazard digging of the roads, which damaged the BSNL cable. He said that BSNL has squarely blamed the contractor for the damages.“BSNL says that fixing these damaged cables might take a long time, even up to a month,” he added.This has inconvenienced many students and professionals.Vijay Ganesh, a software engineer who is preparing for the GRE, is one of those affected. He says that he needs to travel to far-off places so that he can study for his examinations as his study material is only available online.Thandavarayan, another resident of the locality, said that BSNL authorities have not taken any action despite they having filed a written complaint. “On April 20, I gave a written complaint to the BSNL about the damaged cables and the nonfunctioning landline and broadband connections.Till date, I have not received any response from them. To make matters worse, I received the bill for the month.When I contacted the office, they told me to write a letter to the assistant engineer stating that the cables were damaged and requesting him to waiver the fees,” he recalled. “Phones are for emergencies, and when the lines are not working, what is the use? When service is not provided, why charge the people for the rent of the phone? The people were not responsible for the damaged lines. It is not fair to ask the people to pay the rent. The officials at BSNL are asking for letters from the affected people to dole out concessions. But when the whole area is affected, what is the point?” asks an outraged Manoj.When the digging work began, the residents of the area were happy that they were going to receive water supply through pipelines.But the costs that they have been paying for the development work has made them bitter. They feel that the project could have been handled better. Many are of the opinion that the incident brought out the lack of coordination between the two departments and also the passing-the-buck attitude that’s prevalent among them. Coordination between various government department and agencies are of the utmost need. As many residents agreed, it was not right for the people to suffer due to this absence of coordination.Their primary concern: Will the residents have to pay such a heavy price in return for development work? And drinking water supply, they argued, was a basic amenity that they rightfully deserved.
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