Walking in the streets of Manimajra a town situated in the union territory of Chandigarh has become a dangerous task. You have to be extra vigilant while passing through the streets. One after the other, incessantly, the motorbikes, rickshaws, bicycles, autos and cars comes chasing you.
The vehicles are parked on the paths and streets which can hardly accommodate one vehicle breadth. It is to the credit of the vehicle drivers who can still maneuver their vehicles through invisible empty space.
The reason for this chaos seems to me is the inordinate increase in the population of migrant tenants. This is due to the expansion of information technology parks, industries and offices of Haryana and union territory of Chandigarh.
With Chandigarh being very costly for living and thus unaffordable, many employees have taken houses on rent here. There are tenants in almost every house. This being an oriental old unplanned town, the civic amenities are lesser; hence the rents are also lower. The low income employees find the living here affordable. There is bazaar where all kinds of vendors sell their wares at cheaper rates than Chandigarh.
Being an old oriental type of the town, it is much unplanned in architecture. There are streets which are so narrow that even a two wheeler vehicle is not easy to pass through it. There is no concept of parking place at home.
As the people economic condition is improving, everyone is buying scoters and cars which have no place except the open street in front of houses to park. There are squabbles and fights for the public space for parking the vehicle. So, most of its population is temporary of floating in nature.
Such populace does not have any emotional attachment with the town. They are the transient birds who come here to stay for some time and then push off to another places.
Due to this alarming rise in number of people, the cleanliness: which even otherwise was not there, has become deplorable. Lots of non-degradable materials like polythene bags are thrown into the open running drains and clog them at different points and the whole drainage water spills into the streets. It is an open invitation to diseases.
I am sure that at many places, the drainage effluent may be leaking into the drinking water lines contaminating it.