Date:09/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/09/stories/2009010958470400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

TNSCB’s submission on tenements

K.T. Sangameswaran

CHENNAI: Construction of tenements in the North Madras All India Radio Scheme area for the tsunami-affected has commenced.

It will be completed in two years, the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) has submitted before the Madras High Court.

Recording the board’s undertaking, Justice A. Kulasekaran has disposed of a writ petition filed by Vijaya and 43 others seeking a direction to the respondents — State Home Secretary, Madras District Collector and the TNSCB, represented by its Managing Director — to issue orders allotting houses to the petitioners in the Tiruvottiyur AIR’s land.

In his order, Mr. Justice Kulasekaran said the allotting authority was the board. In its counter affidavit, the board submitted that the petitioners had verified with the North Madras tsunami-affected people’s list forwarded by the Chennai Collectorate. It was found that the names of 18 petitioners alone were in the list.

However, if the Collectorate enquired about the eligibility criteria and forwarded a recommendation containing a fresh list of the other petitioners who were alleged to have been left out, all the people, including those whose names were already recommended, would be accommodated in the tenements to be constructed in the North Madras AIR Scheme area, with the assistance of the World Bank.

‘No further order’

The judge said that in view of the undertaking given by the board that the petitioners were eligible persons to be allotted tenements and they would get allotment after construction was completed, the court was of the considered view that no further order was required.