Despair for aged Kerala siblings after corp halts construction on long-awaited home

"Permit was not provided as distance was not maintained from the road. With this one cent of land how can we maintain this distance?" Freddy asked.
Despair for aged Kerala siblings after corp halts construction on long-awaited home
Despair for aged Kerala siblings after corp halts construction on long-awaited home
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The Corporation of Thiruvananthapuram has issued a stop memo on construction of a house for siblings Nabeesa Beevi, Sainaba and Saleem – all in their 70s, living with psycho-social disabilities, and homeless.

After requests to the government by Naseema, the daughter of Nabeesa, the government in 2011 allotted a plot of one cent (approximately 435 square feet) to the three. Here, the family put up a shed of tarpaulin as a temporary shelter and lived. Naseema says that although they have applied for a house, they were denied it citing one or the other technical reason. However with the support of a local politician and members of the public, construction began on a small house on the plot.

But the Thiruvananthapuram corporation has now denied permission for the construction and has issued a stop memo.

The corporation, in its memo dated March 12, 2020, claims that the construction of the building began without a permit, and that permission was denied because the building violates local norms about setback distance from the road.

Freddy Joseph, a Congress leader who has been coordinating the efforts to build a house for the family said that all houses in the area violate the setback rule and that no other house has maintained the setback distance. “We were planning to build one room on the ground floor and two small rooms on the first floor. We collected building materials from locals and started work when an official from the town planning commission ordered a stop memo," he said.

Naseema told TNM that she has been requesting government authorities for a shelter to take care of her family. "How will I protect them? They are sick and old. They need help even for the most basic tasks. When I asked the authorities, they said I can't build a house in one cent of land," she said.

"Permit was not provided as distance was not maintained from the road. With this one cent of land how can we maintain this distance?" Freddy asked.

“Now these homeless people live in the premises of some religious centers," he added.

 
 
 
 

 

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