Retired public servant approaches NHRC for relief after a futile four-year battle

At a time when one daily hears of hundreds of kilometres of highways being laid all over the country, a retired public servant in Tirupati has been waging a grim battle for nearly four years to get the state to lay a pucca road over a 500 metre-stretch that leads to his house.

Bandla Raja Reddy (64) retired from the Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS) in 2014. Post-retirement, he has been living in Tirupati’s Nalanda Nagar, on the city’s outskirts. Since his house is located 500 metres from the last building on his street, the local municipal body perhaps found it ‘uneconomical’ to lay a pucca road on this stretch.

Mr. Reddy made verbal requests for two years. On getting no response, he sent his first official letter to the Tirupati Urban Development Authority (TUDA) in April 2016, which re-directed his missive to the Panchayat Raj department, as the locality fell under Peruru, a village abutting the city. During the monsoon that year Mr. Reddy had a nightmarish experience when he and his infant grandson, while driving home in their car, got stuck in the slushy soil on a rainy night. His patience snapped.

He flashed a telephone complaint to ‘Meekosam’ (Dial Your CM) in September 2017, which was erroneously re-directed to the Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT). The MCT sent a terse reply stating that his neighbourhood did not fall under their limits. Then he sent representations through registered post to the Collector on October 22, 2017 and again on November 15, 2017. Now the buck got promptly passed to the District Panchayat Officer (DPO), and then to the local Panchayat Secretary and Extension Officer (Panchayat Raj and Rural Devlopment) of Tirupati Rural mandal.

“The constant humiliation at various levels made me write to the NHRC on November 19, 2017, and again on November 24. It directed the district magistrate (Collector) to get the road laid in eight weeks, marking a copy to the A.P. State Human Rights Commission. The SHRC issued a notice to the Collector on Feb. 26, 2018. “The matter was listed for June 4 before SHRC. That is the last thing we have officially heard from them”, Mr. Reddy said.

Mr. Reddy said he has not been officially informed by any authority that the road cannot be laid. He was perplexed when an official asked him why does he have to stay so far from the habitation. “Citing paucity of funds, some officials advised me to lay the road at my own cost, to be adjusted against property tax in future. Does this sound logical?” he wondered.