The Hindu      11.07.2016  

Two decades on, PSUs yet to receive property documents from CMDA

While the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority — the city’s principal planning agency pulls up people and developers when they step out of the line — it has also been delaying the issuance of a vital document to three public sector undertakings for many years now.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Housing and Urban Development Corporation and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation are among other Central and State government establishments that have offices at Thalamuthu Natarajan building on Gandhi Irwin Road in Egmore. The high-rise building also houses CMDA’s offices of its member secretary and planners in addition to government banks’ corporate offices.

The three PSUs have been writing repeatedly to the CMDA, with letters addressed to its member secretary about the prolonged delay in getting sale deed documents. A letter from HPCL to the bureaucrat in January this year said they had purchased two premises on fourth floor east and west wings and another on the third floor west wing in tower 1 of the building in 1989. However, 27 years later, they were yet to receive the sale deed.

“We have been taking it up regularly with the CMDA officers concerned. However, the execution of the sale deedhas not materialised so far,” the letter said. Similarly, a letter from ONGC appealed to the CMDA to expedite the process of issuing the sale deed since their statutory and government auditors were continuously monitoring and pressing for the document.

Incomplete paper work?

While officials at neither the CMDA nor the Department of Housing and Urban Development responded to queries about the episode, sources said the handing over of the sale deed document formed the culmination of a property transaction and that it was not done in this case due to certain incomplete paper work. As it involved two government agencies, the issue of sale deed was not being seriously followed up.

Sources said that it would send a wrong message about the functioning of agencies involved in housing and urban planning. Sources in the city planning agency also said many allottees — including individual owners who were selected to get housing plots too did not receive the same.

In the absence of the sale deed, purchasers could not even apply for ‘patta’ – the land ownership document.

In the absence of the sale deed, purchasers could not even apply for ‘patta’ – the land ownership document