Forbidden Warasia cries for civic amenities

Meandering roads, heaps of garbage, overflowing sewage give residents and passers-by a torrid time. Warasia resembles a picture of a small dirty town where Vadodara Municipal Corporation’s budgetary allocations seem to be getting clogged in choked drains.

While ruling parties have changed and so have the councillors and municipal commissioners, the plight of more than one lakh Sindhis has not. And on Friday as the fraternity celebrates their New Year — Cheti Chand — the cross section of residents of Warasia with whom Express Newsline spoke do not have much hopes.

What could be more shocking than the fact that Warasia does not have a town planning scheme, resulting in haphazard development. “Development means civic amenities and not concrete structures,” says 82-year-old medical practitioner Dr H J Karamchandani. The VMC has given hasty permissions and neglected development, he alleges, recalling that in Karachi prior to building permissions, roads and other amenities were provided.

According to City Engineer B K Desai, Warasia is too small to lay a town planning scheme but admits a scheme could have been laid by joining another area. “Now there is no chance,” he claims.

Being a former councillor, Karamchandani acknowledges VMC’s financial constraints, but says priorities could have been fixed earlier. Congress councillor Ishwarlal Shewani says with no town planning roads, it becomes difficult for councillors to provide amenities. BJP councillor Rekha Bhatt says coucillors have to bank upon either the MLA’s quota or that of the MP’s.

The roads are in a bad shape and water-logging during monsoon is frequent, complains Sajankumar Thakourela, a resident of Gayatrinagar Society. “All cannot contribute to lay roads in societies in absence of town planning roads,” he says. More than 25 housing societies have to make do with cylinder gas due to the VMC’s failure to extend gas pipeline from near RTO office, he complains.

Project Officer of Gas Project Manmohan Sutaria says, for several years additional charge was given to city engineers. While this affected work, Sutaria says now a survey is being undertaken to lay lines in city’s peripheries. There is no answer about how long it will take to supply pipeline gas to parts of Warasia.

Earlier grievances were redressed properly. But not any longer, says Kaushalya Sohanda, a resident of Sharda Society. Echoing her sentiments is Manju Lachhwani of Gayatrinagar. “For long we have been receiving low water pressure and which also emits foul smell,” she says.

A highly placed civic officer requesting anonymity says, the VMC lays and strengthens service lines only after development of houses. Doing vice-versa means investing huge sum and many a time the VMC has no details about where development will take place.

In-charge City Engineer B S Trapasia says water pressure problem is likely to ease after boosting station at Harni comes up. Regarding foul smell, he says, it is because of water getting mixed up with sewage; but there is no permanent solution. “We rectify the fault when complaint is received,” he adds.

Girish Bhagya, a shopkeeper on the road behind the RTO, says during the monsoons he has to frequently come during nights to remove goods from the provision store as the water level rises due to inadequate storm water drains. “We have to shift to another house at a higher platform,” says Revachand Brahmkhatri, another shopkeeper.

“It is unfortunate that although Warasia contributes almost the same rate of taxes like Alkapuri, the development here is practically zero,” says Hiro Lalwani, city unit president of Akhil Bharatiya Sindhi Samaj. May be it is because the community has no strong political leader and people could do only as much, he claims.