Residents of containment zones left to fend for themselves

Chennai

“For the past several days, we could not even go out for rations. The authorities have become stricter as they are not allowing us to go out of the street,” VS Jayaraman, a resident of Motilal Street in T Nagar said. Motilal Street was announced as a containment zone on May 28.

Making the situation worse, a vegetable vendor, who was allowed by the Greater Chennai Corporation to sell vegetables inside the street, vacated the spot after selling vegetables for a day. “After that, we could not find him.”

Jayaraman added that civic body officials provided some phone numbers to the residents on the first day and asked them to contact if they needed any help. “When we tried to call the number, it connected to a shop in T Nagar. When we asked for help, they refused to come citing lack of manpower. We were made to live through with food items that we had stocked before the restrictions,” he said.

Some of the residents of the street managed to order vegetables and other essential items online and received the items at the corner of the street. The police are not allowing the delivery executives inside the street.

Even though the civic body left residents without essentials, they conducted periodic medical camps on the street and distributed vitamin and zinc tablets along with kabasura kudineer.

Meanwhile, residents of Rangan Street in T Nagar are opposing the Chennai Corporation’s move to lodge doctors, who have been deployed from other districts, in an apartment building there. “More than 20 doctors will stay in the apartment. There are families with kids and elderly persons in the building. The civic body should make arrangements at hotels or community halls for the doctor,” a resident said.

Including Motilal Street, there are 17 containment zones in Kodambakkam zone. Overall, the city had 90 containment zones. As on Monday, the city had only 61 containment zones. On Tuesday alone, the civic body added 21 new containment zones, all in Tondiarpet zone.

Earlier, the civic body was imposing containment restrictions even if a single case reported from a street. The norms were relaxed to impose restrictions on the streets from where five or more index cases are reported or five or more families get the infection.