Traffic on the busy San Thome High Road was jammed as over 100 residents of Srinivasapuram by the seashore staged a protest on the road and blocked traffic flow.
Police could not dissuade them to disperse and the Mylapore MLA, Dha Velu, held talks on the road to convince the protestors many women, to abandon the protest here.
This action follows the death of a young man earlier his week when the balcony of his top floor flat in the decaying blocks of Srinivasapuram collapsed.
There are some 25 plus state-built blocks here which have been in bad shape for years now; the state agency in charge has sealed some but every monsoon season a few parts of flats that are occuiped, collapse.
There have been talks by state agencies to get residents to move out and await new dwellings when new blocks are bullt but the process has been delayed; Some say a local group has thwarted the plan since it manages many unauthorised shanty rooms rented to migrants who work in the zone.
Other residents say they are ready to move but have not been given a pucca space closeby; they do not wan t to be dumped on the fringes of the city.
There are thousands of people living in illegal huts and houses here and along the Adyar estuarine shore. These people also want to be counted.
- 2nd and 3rd photos were shot last year; in this colony flats
- By Madhan Kumar and Baskar Seshadri
