The city Corporation on Saturday demolished two buildings that were illegally constructed on its land at Dr. Munusamy Nagar in Ramanathapuram. Corporation Commissioner G. Latha said that after it came to her notice that the land measuring 15 cents was under illegal occupation, she ordered demolition of the buildings after warning the occupant a week ago to vacate the premises.
There was an elderly woman resident in one of the two buildings and she had vacated the premises a few days ago.
The building that housed the woman had only the ground floor. The building next to it was a ‘G + 1’ structure and was unoccupied. The demolition started around 8 a.m. and ended three hours later.
The Corporation officials pressed into service two earth movers and two dozen men to demolish the buildings. While they completely razed down the smaller structure, they removed only a part of the bigger building, causing consternation among residents.
A resident said that the building would turn a haven for anti-social elements, who would frequent the place for booze.
They wanted the Corporation to completely demolish the structure and also called up Ms. Latha, who said that in the coming days the civic body would raze it down.
Ms. Latha said that during a review of OSR (open space reserve) lands in all the 100 wards, it came to light that the land was under illegal occupation.
The person who built the two structures, who is yet to be identified and brought to book, had constructed the buildings and was enjoying by letting them on rent.
Housing societyThe land where the demolition took place and another OSR land measuring 12 cents were part of the 44 layouts the Ramanathapuram Cooperative Housing Society had developed more than 40 years ago. The Corporation had earmarked the occupied land as park and the other land as children’s park.
