Ramanagara: Open defecation only option for residents as toilets built lack water

Like most residents of Iruliga Colony at Ramanagara, they useLike most residents of Iruliga Colony at Ramanagara, they use open spaces as toilets. open spaces as toilets.
Siblings Srikanth and Suma from Iruliga Colony in Ramanagara who are physically challenged crawls everyday, even when they are ill to open space for toilet | PANDARINATH B
Siblings Srikanth and Suma from Iruliga Colony in Ramanagara who are physically challenged crawls everyday, even when they are ill to open space for toilet | PANDARINATH B

RAMANAGARA: Srikanth (20) and his 16-year-old sister Suma, both physically challenged and unable to walk, crawl every morning on the mud road to an open field around 500 metres away from their tiny house. Like most residents of Iruliga Colony at Ramanagara, they use open spaces as toilets. While community toilets have been constructed in the colony, they are rendered useless by the absence of water or sanitary connections, forcing people to turn to the fields. 

Their mother Gangamma is a widow who earns `3,500 per month as a farm labourer. “My son was normal till he was seven years old, later the lower half of his body became paralysed. He cannot stand on his own. My daughter also had similar symptoms. I work from morning till evening, leaving them at home. For toilets, they crawl to the field. Even when they are ill, they have to crawl, I cannot carry them,’’ she said.
Iruliga Colony comes under the Ramanagara constituency, which has been a stronghold of Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy. Now his wife Anitha Kumaraswamy is contesting from the same constituency in the bypolls. This place is located about 50 km from Bengaluru. Ramanagara district officials had recently boasted about their high score of  92 per cent in the Swachh Bharat Mission rankings. 

However, the high score remains just on paper for people who live just below the Ramadevara Betta, located off the Bengaluru-Mysuru road, and about 3 km from the Ramanagara DC office. Around 400 people from 70 families live mostly in tiny huts, none of which has a toilet. They work as farm labourers or construction workers. Two years back, a 30-seat toilet was constructed here under the Swachh Bharat Mission, one each for two families by the Harishchandra gram panchayat. But it has not been used from day one. 

“There is no water connection or means of sewage disposal, so we cannot use it,’’ Sheela (name changed), a resident, said.

Heeraiah (58) said, “We are living here from many generations. The government and MLAs keep coming. Our lifestyle has not changed, just that we switched to other meat as forest rats have been banned. We use open fields for defecation like before.’’ 

Interestingly, there is another toilet constructed nearby. It has a water connection and a sewage line. But it is kept locked. “This is only for the officers, the locks are opened whenever they come,’’ said another resident. 

Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Krishne Byregowda, who had recently said that they wanted to declare the state as Open Defecation Free by November 1, said that he would direct the concerned chief executive officer to address the issue. “Our officials will  be visiting the place and the issue will be sorted out,” he said.

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