Chennai Citizen Connect: Andavakkam villagers seek road to graveyard

CHENNAI: The villagers of Andavakkam near Maduranthakam urged officials to provide them with a separate road to the graveyard.

They expressed concern over walking through the farmland to reach the graveyard due to the lack of road facilities for the past 50 years.

The Andavakkam village is situated near Maduranthakam and there are more than 500 people in the village, whose occupation is primarily agriculture and farming. However, for more than 50 years, the village didn’t get a road facility to the graveyard and the residents were left with no other option but to carry the bodies by walking on the fields to reach the grave.

Despite raising complaints with the district administration and Maduranthakam panchayat union office many times, no proper response from the officials and nothing has materialised to date.

Karthick Raja, a resident of the village, said, “Every single time someone dies, we have a hard time reaching the graveyard. As there is no other way except walking on fields, conducting a peaceful funeral is just a dream.” He added that all the crops would get damaged making it even more difficult to carry the deceased’s bodies.

When contacted, an official from the Maduranthakam panchayat union said the process to construct a road to the graveyard from the village is under way. Currently, the discussion regarding the same with the district administration is in progress and the villagers will get a road soon, the official added.