Five blocks of apartments. 40 apartments and over 100 residents. So how has this community on D’ Silva Road managed the corona virus season?
Ganesh Apartments in Mylapore is one of the oldest apartments in Mylapore. Some 40 years old now.
Its team that manages local affairs has worked out some regulations which has helped residents go along.
The welfare association has made available the phone number of a vegetable and fruit vendor from Koyembedu to the residents. Based on their needs, the residents call the vendor and let him know their requirements.
Sampath Dorairajan ( seen in the photo below), president, Ganesh Apartments Welfare Association said, “The mobile vegetable van makes periodic visits and stops within walking distance of the flats for the residents to pick up their items. The residents of the apartments have found this very convenient during the period of the lockdown.”
A. Kalyanaraman, secretary of this Association says that the association had laid out clear cut rules for the residents in late March. “As a rule, we barred outsiders from entering the apartments. However, when exceptional circumstances warrant an entry, we made it mandatory for the visitors to wear a mask. Under any circumstance, no one is allowed into the apartments without a mask.”
He says that this found favour with the residents. Also, he is particularly pleased that the residents of the apartments have co-operated well and no one has moved out of the apartments during the period of the lockdown, exercising themselves in self-quarantine.
While the association took a call to put the service maids on a temporary hold during this period of quarantine, most of them have decided to pay the service personnel through the period of this absence from work.
The welfare association has taken special initiatives to take care of the security guards of the apartments “We came to an informal understanding among us to provide food and tea /biscuits to the security guards through the period of the lockdown,” says Kalyanaraman.
The welfare association has also brought together the women of the apartments to present slokams every evening in front of lord Guruvayuraappan within the apartments. “Maintaining social distancing, the women have been reciting slokams between 7pm and 8.30pm,” says Kalyanaraman.
- Report by S. Prabhu
