Displaced residents demand permanent solution, gherao KMRC officials, Metro stn
Times of India | 7 September 2024
12 Kolkata: The sudden evacuation on Thursday night angered the Bowbazar residents, who gheraoed KMRC officials and the nearby Central metro station to voice their protest.
Dibyendu Chakraborty, a resident of Durga Pituri Lane, shared his frustration about the ongoing situation, saying: “Around 12:45 am, KMRC staff informed us to leave our homes due to an emergency water leakage.Even a few hours ago, in the afternoon, they had given us a certificate declaring our houses fit for occupancy. We're frustrated with this harassment. There should be permanent solution.”
Dipankar Dutta, a 42-year-old businessman and resident of the area, added: "I had to relocate to the hotel with my mother, who was suffering from high fever. It was a nightmare trying to move her in that condition.”
After the micro-tunnelling work, the residents had returned to their homes on Monday. “What is KMRC up to? Couldn’t the residents return on a later date?” asked Sanjoy Sen, secretary of the Bowbazar Mati-o-Manab Kalyan Samity. “The water seepage occurred five days after the micro-tunnelling. We couldn’t have foreseen it,” a KMRC official said.
On Friday afternoon, Anuj Mittal, the new KMRC MD, met the aggrieved residents and promised to set up a committee to address their grievances. Around 400 residents are housed in flats rented by ITD.
Families are finding it particularly challenging to balance their work and family obligations from the hotel rooms. “We've been facing this problem since 2019, and I feel helpless,” said Amit Sen, a resident. Sanjoy Sen, whose three-storey house collapsed on Aug 31 2019, said: “It has been five years since we lost our ancestral home and have been living in a match-box of a flat rented by KMRC. This is the sixth year since the East-West Metro project rendered us homeless. If KMRC is never going to return us to our property, they should spell it out.”