Corporation to complete reserve site survey in the next few days

COIMBATORE, 16/01/2009: Salvaged: The reserved site at G.R.G. Nagar in Coimbatore that the Coimbatore Corporation took possession of on January 16, 2009. This followed the District Sessions Court's order late last year, upholding the Corporation Council's resolution in August last year to take over the site that had been converted into house plots. Photo: K. Ananthan

In the next few days the Coimbatore Corporation will complete the reserve site identification and fencing survey – a task it began sometime in December last year.

According to sources, the civic body officials from the Town Planning wing have completed work in all the 20 wards each in the East Zone and South Zone, in 15 of the 20 wards in the Central Zone, in 12 of the 20 wards in North Zone and 14 of the 20 wards in West Zone.

In the next few days the number of wards where work has been completed will go up eight once the ground-level officials update the details on the Coimbatore Corporation website, which marks the official completion of the work.

And, in the remaining wards, the work will get over in the next few days. The officials’ job is to identify the reserve sites in the wards, ensure that they are free of encroachment, remove encroachments if there is one, plant boards saying that the land belongs to the Corporation and measure those sites.

The sources say that the officials have identified 969 reserve sites in 756 layouts in places where the work has been completed. In half-a-dozen places where there were encroachments, the Corporation removed those by demolishing the structures, just as it did in Ramanathapuram a few days ago.

It had also demolished a few buildings to reclaim the open space reserve sites inside apartment complexes.

Commissioner G. Latha says that once the work is complete, the civic body will target those reserve sites that are under illegal occupation for commercial gain. It will demolish buildings to reclaim land and initiate criminal proceedings against the encroachers.

As a next step, the Corporation will look at developing parks on the reserve sites. In developing parks, it will once again revive the process of consulting non-government organisations and residents’ welfare associations – an attempt it twice made without much success.

The Commissioner says that members of the public could also come forward to take up maintenance of reserve sites by looking for the same in the Coimbatore Corporation’s website.