Dharitri Prasad Mishra. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

For Dharitri Prasad Mishra, 70, staying at Chandrasekharpur’s BDA Colony has been a traumatic experience. Having spent 25 years in this colony, Mishra, who is the president of Citizens’ Committee, BDA Colony, Chandrasekharpur, shares his agony and angst with The Telegraph:

When I started living in this colony 25 years ago, the entire place looked like a huge stretch of barren land. When I decided to buy a flat here my wife was critical of the decision.

While the BDA Colony at Chandrasekharpur was the beginning of the multi-storeyed apartment culture in Bhubaneswar promoted by the Bhubaneswar Developm-ent Authority (BDA), Odia fa-milies were not accepting the idea as owning a plot of land and building an independent house was always a fancy.

My wife also asked similar questions like a typical Odia woman. “Where will I be keeping my tulasi plant?” “If we stay in an apartment drying out clothes, especially saris, would be a problem.”

However, after much persuasion, she agreed and finally I went for the game.

The colony was constructed between 1984-87 and was handed over by February 1988. When we took possession water supply was not there though the higher income group (HIG) houses had overhead tanks. Water supply started after two years.

The road in front of our colony was also narrow. It was also not black-topped. Similarly, there was nothing in the areas beyond Chandrasek-harpur which now has Sailas-hree Vihar, Niladri Vihar, Patia and the KIIT University.

The development of the BDA Colony, Chandrasekharpur, was the first step towards building a new Bhubaneswar.

However, BDA could not maintain it as a model project as the construction was of very low quality. Such was the engineering that the toilets of the flats were filled with sand and the wastewater coming from the top floor gradually seeped through the sand filling.

You will be surprised to find that people are still using umbrellas in some middle-income group and low-income group houses as wastewater is still dripping in their rooms. In the rainy days, the situation becomes terrible. Now, when people are planning to renovate these erroneous structures, the BDA authorities are slapping “violation charges” and disturbing many people.

When we started shifting to the BDA Colony in 1987, there was not a single institution worth mentioning here, but after establishment of several hospitals, nursing homes, schools, engineering colleges, research institutions and offices, the demand of the place has changed. Inside our colony, however, the situation and facilities are getting from bad to worse with each passing day.

The BDA also comes up with actions against “extensions” in an absurd manner. While some minor violations are “targeted” unnecessarily, many are not even touched with considerable changes. The BDA should act democratically.