Legal Services at Door steps

Kalaiselvi is a member of Ellai Muniyandi Kalanjiam a 16 year old SHG of Madurai Vattara Kalanjiam. She narrates that her sister’s husband who had met with an accident. He was hit and thrown away by a speeding car and became disabled. He couldn’t lead his life as before. Though the driver stayed back at the spot and helped him reach the government hospital, he doesn’t come forward for a compromise settlement as his sister’s husband’s vehicle insurance is lapsed. Hence they decided to contest claim for causing disability due to reckless drive. Since it will be a long drawn legal battle hiring a attorney would have resulted in making a huge dent in the family which is already under economic stress caused by the medical expenditures and the loss of income caused by the disability of the primary wage earner.

As our own Kalanjiam president is working as a para legal volunteer, I convinced my sister to seek support from our federation supported legal aid clinic. We filed our case through the legal aid clinic. We incurred expenses only towards preparation and filing of relevant documents. As the advocate is being by the free legal aid services, we are not incurring any expenses towards the attorneys expenses as the cost is being paid by the legal aid services. The awareness to access the services has been possible due to being part of the Kalanjiam and Kalanjiam’s efforts to integrate needy services for poor to ensure entitlements. It is expected to take nine months to One year for getting a direction in this case.

The civic intervention services of the Kalanjiam federation benefits such poor households in addressing their legal issues and the para legal volunteers who got trained by DHAN expedites the process of getting justice at poor’s door steps. It saves the poor valuable time and cost and the community volunteers will become an accessible resource available at their approach.