Months after being elected as Deputy Mayor of Cuttack city, Damayanti Majhi, youngest person to occupy the post, has received notice for partial demolition of her house.
Demolition of the extension of her house was necessitated to make way for the construction of a drain in the slum where she along with her mother and two siblings lived.
Ms. Majhi was elected as Deputy Mayor Cuttack while she is still a student in the 150-year-old Ravenshaw College.
“A drain is to be constructed in the slum. About five to six houses have to be partially demolished. We have extended our house a bit which will be demolished. However, our home will stay intact,” she said.
Ms. Majhi said none of the slum dwellers whose houses would be partially demolished had any objection to the Cuttack city administration’s move.”
Her parents, who were daily wage earners, had migrated from Keonjhar district to Cuttack city, in search of livelihood 25 years ago. They had constructed a three-room house on government land. In 2017, tragedy struck when her father drowned in the Mahanadi River.
Ms. Majhi said she had started supporting her family by taking tuition classes in the slum. While her mother is still a daily wager, the money earned by Ms. Majhi through tuition takes care of education of her sister.
“I don’t have any objection to partial demolition of my house. When a project is meant for greater societal cause, no one should protest it,” she said.
Cuttack Mayor Subash Singh had already said that Ms. Majhi’s long years of experience of living in a slum would come handy for planning slum development programme in Cuttack town.
