Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Urban Environment - Thiruppur

Findings

Health Menace in Thiruppur: In the words of a Physicians

The layers on dust on several roads with the underground sewerage works progressing are terrorising the travelling public in Thiruppur. People now dread travelling on some of the arterial roads, particularly Perumanallur and Kangeyam roads which engulfed by a thick layer of dust. One walking down the road side path will start to feel head ache and body ache in a matter of thirty minutes. Even on broad day light motorists find it extremely difficult to locate the road space on Kangeyam road - the gate way to Thiruchy and Karur - because of poor visibility caused by dust layers.

Similar scenario is found on Perumanallur road and Mangalam road in Thiruppur and including junctions including the Town Hall, Pushpa Theratre Junction and Municipal office, etc. through out the day where pedestrians and passengers are bombarded by mud and sand particles. All these roads were dug up humpteen times by the contractors for water supply and sewerage scheme and the Highways Department is yet to relay it. The roads were relayed but the road margin shrunk. With a huge number of vehicles plying every day, there is increasing layer of dust too.

Besides the Highways Department’s action of dumping mud on potholes on battered roads instead of carrying out patch work makes it worse. Local paediatricians say the frequency of children getting cold and cough is common here and high compared to other towns. The Head of the Department of Pulmonology of PSG Institute of Medical Sciences, Coimbatore, Rtn. Pl. Ramanathan says he receives increasing number of patients with respiratory ailments from Thiruppur. Seven to ten out of 30 patients are from Thiruppur alone.

The consultant pulmonologist, who visited the town a couple of weeks ago, says frequency and severity of exacerbation of bronchial asthma patients are very high from Thiruppur. Besides increasing their drug requirements, it brings down their quality of life. It will be very trouble for those genetically susceptible to respiratory allergy. For non-allergic people the implications will be known at a later stage only after long term exposure.


Mr. Ramanathan says the asthmatic patients earlier visited him for treatment only during climatic changes. But now they visit him most of the time in a year from Thiruppur. The Control Board sources say they had not done any study recently about the problem of air-pollution. The worker-starved Thiruppur municipality which struggles to clear even the garbage lying on street, has no time or resources to clean the roads. A question buzzing around every body’s ears is: Who is to bell the cat?.

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