Pune: Around 200 families residing in the slum settlements of Phule Nagar and Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar on Alandi Road are facing serious hardships. Most of the residents earn their livelihood by selling balloons, pickles, or working as cleaners. The families living there are troubled due to heavy rains as the settlement is based near a drain which is overflowing and the dirty water is entering their homes.
The Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) provided them with basic facilities like electricity and roads.
However, a hazardous situation occurred when a nala carrying wastewater from a nearby mental hospital overflowed. Nearly 80 families were badly affected. Local residents and social groups stepped in to provide them with food and temporary shelter.
Ex-Deputy Mayor Siddharth Dhende said, "The workers for the past few days have been living in hazardous conditions with no light, no sanitation, and the drainage water has gotten inside their homes. Public toilets are located nearly three kilometres away, forcing women, children, and the elderly to walk long distances and cross the overflowing nala. Sanitation is a big problem in the area. I contacted a few officials and they have reached the spot and are carrying out the cleanliness drive."
"We feel helpless due to the lackadaisical attitude of civic officials. Water enters my home every monsoon, due to a nala behind my home and it hardly gets cleaned. The mental hospital releases their waste in this nala and it gets choked up and during the rains it starts to overflow and the dirty sewage water enters our home. We work as a contractual sanitary labor and we clean the city and yet we don't get a clean environment to live in," said Chinma Koli, a local resident.
"Our lives are miserable, our homes are flooded with dirty water. We don't have shelter, and no electricity for the past few days. Nobody listens to us, however it was only when Dhende saheb called the officials from the drainage department that now the cleaning of nalas is being done. Hopefully, we would be able to sleep peacefully at our homes without worrying about the water getting inside our homes," said another resident, Jannat Shekh.
The Free Press Journal tried contacting the drainage department head but he was unavailable for a response.
