Seven families from Kalam Nagar in Maniyakarampalayam today staged a demonstration with candles. They wanted to shed light on the fact that they have been living in darkness for 16 years, and petitioned the district administration to immediately provide them with electricity.

According to M Manivasam, a resident and one of petitioners, around 200 families have been residing in the area for more than 16 years.“Initially, not many houses had electricity connection but later connection was provided to some houses and now, most of them have connections,” he said. However, Manivasam claimed that the officials had failed to provide connection to seven houses housing 30 people as their houses were on Stream Poramboke.

“These seven houses have been purposely rejected by the administration, whereas others in the same area were provided with electricity,” he said, claiming that repeated petitions to the administration have proved futile. Another resident added that if the government failed to provide electricity soon, they would boycott the upcoming elections and stage a black flag protest.