The Hindu 04.11.2009
Biometric survey of slum-dwellers begins
Special Correspondent
Photo: S. Siva Saravanan 
NEW INITIATIVE: A woman gets her thumb impression recorded during a biometric survey in the city on Tuesday. —
COIMBATORE: Under a scheme to provide houses to slum-dwellers, a bio-metric survey of about 2,000 families living in the slums that encroached upon Valankulam Tank began in Ward 25 in the city on Tuesday. The impression of the left thumb of the beneficiaries were being scanned and stored in a database along with the family and income details.
This exercise was part of the Basic Services for the Urban Poor scheme that was being implemented by the Coimbatore Corporation under the Central Government’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission. The objective of the scheme was to create slum-less cities.
Coimbatore was among 63 cities in the country to be covered under the scheme for providing houses with all civic amenities to people living in hutments.
South Zone Chairman P. Pynthamil, who launched the survey, said houses in multi-storeyed tenements would be allotted to each eligible family. Families of persons in government service, including conservancy workers, were not eligible, Mr. Pynthamil said. The targeted beneficiaries worked as domestic help or were daily wage earners. Each family would get a house of 270 sq.ft., costing Rs.1.6 lakh, he said. The Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board would construct the tenements at Ammankulam and Ukkadam for 3,840 families out of the total 9,840 living in slums on water bodies.
The provision of houses for the rest 6,000 families would require acquisition of lands.
The survey would serve as a fool-proof record during allocation of houses. It would show all the details such as ration card number, names of the family members, their photographs and annual income.
The database would show if a beneficiary had already been allotted a house. If any beneficiary wanted to apply for one more house by using a bogus family card, the data available would expose this. “Once the houses are ready, these families on Valankulam will vacate the tank area,” Mr. Pynthamil, who represented Ward 25, said.
