Help is at hand for the children and women who are the roughly 700 people who live in the rooftop slum at Karnani Estate in the heart of Kolkata.

A team of volunteers with the Calcutta Social Project visited the residents on Monday.

“We have a number of programmes including education and skill development which are ongoing in several slums in the city as well as for residents of Sundarbans. We are trying to figure out the programmes that will help these dwellers improve their lives,” Mohuna Dutt, CEO of Calcutta Social Project, said.

The Telegraph Online had earlier reported on the people living for seven decades on the sixth floor roof of Karnani Estate on AJC Bose Road in single-unit tenements under asbestos sheets, with no proper access to drinking water and clean toilets.

The Calcutta Social Project was started by educator Kalyani Karmakar in 1972, providing milk to impoverished women in the city’s slums. Since then, the CSP has started programmes in education, skill development, tutoring centres, vocational training, providing interest-free loans among others to those from the economically challenged sections.

“This place is different from the other slums that we have visited in Kolkata, where we have students enrolled,” said Sourav Ganguly, a junior administrative executive with the CSP and a former beneficiary.

“We met a Class X pass-out who now teaches schoolgoing children. Her sister wanted to be a doctor but got married at an early age. If she wants to pursue a career in nursing, we can provide training,” he added.

The residents of the rooftop slum are descendants of the first occupants who were employed as cooks, khansamas, domestic help and drivers to the residents on the floors below. They were born in the same place, got married there and spent their entire lives on 209 AJC Bose Road.

During a previous visit to the address, a resident Uma Swamy had said, “Our parents could not give us an education. But we think differently from them. We have sent our children to schools and colleges. We want a different life for them.”

Many of the children are going to English medium schools in the locality and also colleges in the neighbourhood, hoping to move out of the rooftop someday. The students told the volunteers they wanted to improve their English speaking skills and were not too keen on other languages like Bangla and Urdu for better prospects.

Moumita Haldar, who met and interacted with the residents, said: “We have explained our programmes to them. Some of them have shown interest.”