Public outrage forces demolition of walls on TN-AP border

Chennai, Apr 28: The novel coronavirus pandemic has given novel ideas to the people in the administration to arrest its spread. Look at this. In Tamil Nadu’s Vellore district, the district administration has constructed walls at three entry points from neighboring Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district. That due to public outrage the administration has to demolish these walls is another story. But this was done with a view to preventing the infections makes all the difference!

The walls were constructed at three entry points on Palamaner-Gudiyattam Road, Chittor-Tiuttani, and Chittor-Vellore Roads. Cement bricks were used for constructing these walls. The Work that began on Sunday evening continued till Monday afternoon.

 

The walls were raised as part of the efforts ofthe administration to prevent vehicular traffic between the two states. But this naturally led to a massive hue and cry among the people from both the states who felt that such a step was unwarranted.

The pictures of the walls soon went viral on social media leading to Andhra Pradesh taking objections to this measure. This compelled the Vellore district collector A Shanmuga Sundaram to order the demolition of walls.Vellore is famous for the Christian Medical College (CMC) where patients from all over the country go for treatment.

However, when the transporting of essential items and ambulances was affected due to these walls, they were removed by the Tamil Nadu government. The walls were brought down a day after they were built as ambulances and vehicles carrying milk and other essential commodities could not enter from the neighboring state, according to a report published by The New Indian Express.

The Chittoor district administration requested the Vellore administration to remove the walls to facilitate entry of ambulances and vehicles carrying essential commodities such as milk and vegetables. Both Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have reported thousands od COVID-19 cases with Tamil Nadu having 1885 persons affected with 24 deaths while 1177 cases and 31 deaths were reported from Andhra Pradesh.

Tamil Nadu crossed the 1,000-mark on Sunday, even though 60 people were discharged from hospitals all over the state. Cases in Andhra Pradesh, on the other hand, keep rapidly increasing. The number of people who have been cured and discharged in the state stands at 231.