RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Fear now grips sev­er­al fam­i­lies in Kan­hai Trace, South Bar­rack­pore, af­ter a land de­vel­op­er al­leged­ly blocked a wa­ter­course, which res­i­dents fear could turn their com­mu­ni­ty in­to a flood dis­as­ter zone with the next heavy rain­fall.

Am­putee William Frankie, 62, and his 84-year-old moth­er Par­batie Ram­sub­hag are among those af­fect­ed.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day, Frankie said they may have no way to es­cape if flood­wa­ters rise, as the wa­ter­course, which runs in front of their home, has been back­filled.

Frankie said for the past three weeks, they have watched in an­guish as heavy equip­ment carved in­to a near­by hill­side, of­fload­ing truck­loads of dirt in­to what was once their nat­ur­al drainage chan­nel.

Point­ing to the blocked chan­nel as he sat in his wheel­chair at Kan­hai Trace, South Bar­rack­pore, a dis­traught Frankie said: “If rain falls with­in an hour, this whole place will turn in­to a swamp.”

He said the land de­vel­op­er blocked the en­tire wa­ter­course and raised it three feet above where it was sup­posed to be.

“My house will flood, and I could lose every­thing,” Frankie said.

His wife, Meera Frankie, said the back­fill­ing has now ef­fec­tive­ly choked the com­mu­ni­ty’s main out­let for runoff, leav­ing wa­ter with nowhere to go.

Meera said they are al­ready fac­ing an in­crease in rats, mos­qui­toes and snakes.

Point­ing to a stop-work no­tice from the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Meera said of­fi­cials from the Cor­po­ra­tion vis­it­ed the area and is­sued no­tices, but the work re­sumed short­ly af­ter, of­ten un­der the cov­er of night.

Last De­cem­ber, she said the com­mu­ni­ty did a pe­ti­tion, but de­spite this, the au­thor­i­ties did noth­ing, and the work has con­tin­ued.

She point­ed to a no­tice is­sued on April 1 and a re­fusal from Town and Coun­try Plan­ning dat­ed De­cem­ber 2025, both of which ap­pear to have been ig­nored.

“He is do­ing work at night or when res­i­dents have gone to work,” she said.

A res­i­dent, Har­ryper­sad Ram­rat­tan, said he feels help­less watch­ing his own com­mu­ni­ty placed at risk.

“It’s not right. We didn’t get ap­proval, but he is con­tin­u­ing to back­fill,” Ram­rat­tan said.

Doc­u­ments from Town and Coun­try Plan­ning dat­ed De­cem­ber 3 show that the pro­posed de­vel­op­ment—span­ning 1.3456 hectares—was de­nied, as the land is des­ig­nat­ed for agri­cul­tur­al use un­der na­tion­al pol­i­cy. The let­ter said lim­it­ed res­i­den­tial de­vel­op­ment is on­ly per­mit­ted along Kan­hai Road.

Dhanie Ram­seep­aul, who lives next to the back­filled land, said he was frus­trat­ed with the lack of en­force­ment.

Ram­seep­aul said apart from the health haz­ard and flood threats, they were now fear­ful for their lives.

He said that with weath­er con­di­tions ex­pect­ed to wors­en, they were now plead­ing for ur­gent ac­tion be­fore the sit­u­a­tion turns trag­ic.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, the chair­man of the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Gowrie Roop­nar­ine, said he will in­ves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to the Supt of the South­ern Di­vi­sion, Richard Bertie, and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and is await­ing a re­sponse.