As many as 12,402 families living in thatched-roof huts in the district have been declared eligible for getting pucca concrete houses under the ‘Kalaignar Veettu Vasathi Thittam' (Kalaignar Housing Scheme).
A survey undertaken in all the 13 blocks by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) found another 5,259 huts to be conditionally eligible. The owners have to submit their applications with the required documents before Thursday, official sources told The Hindu here on Monday.
Of these, 1,886 huts were located on poromboke land, 184 in temple land with notices issued to another 158 huts where the doors were found locked when the surveyors visited them. Follow-up action has been initiated to obtain pattas for huts built on poromboke land and no-objection certificates for those in temple land, sources said.
The documents must be produced along with petitions to the respective Block Development Officers (BDO) and the panchayat presidents before Thursday. The survey covered 418 panchayats and enumerated a total of 26,581 huts. A total of 8,920 huts were found ineligible for various reasons.
Huts situated in locations such as water course poromboke land (rivers, canals, tanks, ponds), highways and road poromboke land, cremation grounds, grazing sites, reserve forests and on land belonging to Government departments are not eligible for replacement with permanent houses.
According to sources, each enumeration team comprised a village administrative officer, makkal nala paniyalar and village panchayat assistant. As an accurate survey was vital for the successful implementation of the housing scheme, a Deputy Block Development Officer-led ‘super-checking' team cross-checked the initial results for veracity.
The housing scheme was launched in Tiruchi on March 3 by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi. It aims to convert all eligible huts in Tamil Nadu to pucca concrete houses within a six-year period, from 2010-11 to 2015-16 with a unit cost of Rs. 60,000 per hut.