Officials seeking anonymity initially said Kandasamy failed to understand the glitches in the Central government scheme and that many beneficiaries were unable to complete construction with the sanctioned amount.

But suddenly, officials worked overtime to ensure allotment of 3,500 houses when the public went allout to support Kandasamy. While the local farmers’ association staged a demonstration in front of the Tiruvannamalai collector’s office some days back, expressing solidarity with the collector’s move, “members of the public also chipped in with assurances of individual support,” says local resident K Kumarasamy.

However, what seems to have changed the association’s initial intransigence was a social media post which went viral revealing a conversation between a woman beneficiary from the district who said that she had paid a ‘mamool’ of Rs 4,000 for each of the three Rs 26,000 instalments released for the housing scheme by local officials.

Talking to this reporter, Kandasamy said he had received “complaints of officials in BDO offices refusing to allot houses till their palms were greased”.