The Hindu            05.02.2014

Slum dwellers to be shifted to Ammankulam tenements soon

The Coimbatore Corporation would soon initiate measures
to move to the Ammankulam tenements, the urban slum dwellers that lived
along water bodies on encroached land.

The Tamil Nadu
Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) that had constructed the flats was ready
to hand them over. Once the formal handing over was complete, the
Corporation would start the process of handing them over to
beneficiaries whom it had already identified.

The
first to go and occupy the tenements would be the slum dwellers from the
Highways Colony on Trichy Road, who occupied the Valangulam banks, said
Mayor S.M. Velusamy a few days ago.

As and when the
Corporation handed over the flats to the beneficiaries, it would mark
the beginning of the next step in its efforts to rehabilitate the urban
slum dwellers. At Ammankulam, 729 flats are ready for occupation.

Though
the TNSCB had constructed 1,608 flats, it had to scale down the number
after two apartments — 2B and 4B — sunk 50 cm and 25 cm triggering the
need to demolish the top floors to restore stability to the structures.
The sinking happened in 2010.

The Corporation had
asked the TNSCB to construct the tenements under the Central
Government’s Basic Services for Urban Poor programme of the Jawaharlal
Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission project. The Government had also
given more than 50 per cent of the project cost. Mr. Velusamy said that
the Corporation had also decided to handover 20 acres to the TNSCB to
construct 5,000 flats to complete the housing project for the urban
poor. The 20 acres it had identified was in Vellalore and part of the
Vellaore compost yard land.

Once the construction of
5,000 flats was complete, it would take the total number of houses
constructed to more than 12,000. The TNSCB had constructed 7,000
apartments at Ukkadam.

He added that the Corporation deciding to hand over the 20 acre was based on a request from the TNSCB.