The Hindu     10.06.2010

Housing Board to create separate city on Foreshore Estate

Special Correspondent

VELLORE: The Tamil Nadu Housing Board would be creating a separate city on a 51-acre site in Foreshore Estate in Chennai at an investment of Rs.10,000 crore, according to Dharmendra Pratap Yadav, Managing Director of the Board.

Talking to reporters here after conducting a meeting to review the progress in the implementation of the Interest Subsidy Scheme for Housing for the Urban Poor (ISHUP) at the Collectorate here on Wednesday, Mr. Yadav said that existing old houses of the TNHB on about 27 acres and the houses of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board on 21 acres in Foreshore Estate would be demolished, and new houses built in their place.

The TNHB planned to construct 3,000 houses for rent by government servants and another 3,500 houses for slum-dwellers. Any remaining space would be given to private builders through the international bidding process for construction of houses and provision of facilities as a joint venture with the TNHB.

The Managing Director said that the decision to create a new city was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Secretary K.S. Sripathi in Chennai recently. “We will finalise the plan and commence the work in about four to five months,” he said.

Asked about the problems faced by the allottees of houses of the TNHB in different parts of the State in obtaining sale deeds in view of the action of the Board in asking them to pay a huge difference in cost arising out of the award of enhanced compensation by the Madras High Court to those who gave land to the TNHB, Mr. Yadav said that the Board was very much seized of the issue and had expedited the court cases.

The government has recently issued an order on pricing of the land on which the TNHB houses were built, and would be shortly finalising the value. In a month's time, it would be issuing 13,000 sale deeds. The Board was also going on appeal in some cases in order to get the compensation awarded by courts reduced.

Some proposals are also pending with the government, which will give substantial benefit to the allottees, both monetarily, as well as in getting the sale deeds, he said.