Kottayam: Cheruthony shop owners share tales of woe

Kottayam: When the shutters of Idukki dam were opened in August last, the biggest  devastation occured at Cheruthoni junction. The worst-hit were 13 shop owners whose properties were reduced to rubble. This paper talked to the victims, who had profitable businesses once, but are    in dire straits now.

Joseph Thomas alias Thankachan,60,  and his wife Achamma Joseph lost their a hotel when the water  was released from the dam on the evening of August 16.

Thankachan's father,  a rubber tapping employee at the Chaliakara estate near Punalur,  relocated to Cheruthony in 1968 and the family was  living at a place three km from the dam.   

Thankachen had bought the four-storied Palace Hotel and a medical store near the Cheruthony bridge  for `1. 40 crore by selling his land in 2010.  

“When water was released, we could not even take our belongings or  the day’s collection from the hotel,”  said  Achama Joseph.   For two days they stayed in a rehabilitation camp  at an auditorium  far  away from their house.

They returned a few  days later to see the remnants of the building which was washed away along with the furniture.  

“We lost our entire ear-nings and possessions and  are finding it difficult to make both ends meet. No people’s representative has visited us,”  said Achamma.  

M.S. Muralidharan,  who owned  a shop selling agricultural and  iron utensils  opposite the  hotel of Thankachan,  lost his goods in the floods. He has set up a temporary shop by taking loans and through  micro-finance.

He said the village authorities and the district industrial development centre  had not considered his  application for compensation.     Roo-pesh, who had lent his building to Muralid-haran, lost it in the floods and has not received any help from authorities.

T.T.  Prasad of Mariyap-uram,  four km  from Cherthony, who owned  a flour mill and a soda company opposite the Cheruthony bus stand, lost machinery worth `15 lakh from both the shops. He was running his business from  a rented building of the district panchayat. Though he had applied to the village office and  panchayat, he is yet to receive any compensation.

C.N. Pavitharan  of Cheruthony on the Vellakayam road, who had been running  a spare parts shop, stationary shop and a newspaper agency in the building of the district panchayat for  the last 25 years, said  he sustained a loss of `5 lakh  in the deluge.  “We could not  take our belongings and the expensive machinery. I have received no  compensation,”  Pavithran  told DC.