A village in the city’s north in the early 1990s, Mathur was chosen by the State government to be a model panchayat.
Utilising funds from the Sites and Services Scheme of the Tamil Nadu Urban Development Project, the government decided to provide the village with all the basic amenities and government departments. So they built a fire station, government schools, community halls, a market complex and a housing board office complex.
It was to benefit the residents, primarily the lower income group — workers of industrial units in Madhavaram and Manali. Two decades later, they remain simply as buildings — dilapidated and non-functional.
Pointing to a completely degraded and abandoned government school on M.M.D.A 29{+t}{+h}Street, R. Kalaiarasi, a resident, says, “I have been living here since my marriage 19 years ago. The school never functioned. I don’t know why they have left it to ruins.”
The building meant for a fire control room too is dilapidated. Residents want government agencies to spruce up the buildings, constructed at a huge cost, for the benefit of hundreds of families. Mathur was a village panchayat under Puzhal Panchayat Union of Tiruvallur district until its merger with Chennai Corporation in 2011.
Officials of the Department of Housing and Urban Development said that housing plots were developed on a 50-hectare site and a school, fire station, a market, community hall and bus stand were constructed, but they were neglected as there was no follow-up by the different agencies involved. The scheme was to be implemented by Tamil Nadu Housing Board and coordinated by Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA).
Lack of coordination
Officials conceded that lack of maintenance proved to be the undoing, eventually resulting in the scheme’s collapse. The objective was to provide plots measuring 32 square metres (about 345 sq. ft.) so that low-income groups could afford modest homes in an area complete with facilities for the community. Lack of planning and coordination among various government agencies is also cited as a reason. For instance, there was no need for a full-fledged police station at Mathur as it was covered by the Madhavaram Milk Colony police station, established in the 1960s itself. Further, there was no necessity for a fire station as the nearest station — at Manali — was less than two km away, police officials said.
Corporation sources said there was a dire need for a community hall, but though there was a building for the purpose, it could not be used as the CMDA was yet to hand it over to them. “After the initial euphoria in the first few months, there was no follow-up. The scheme fell apart,” says an official of the Urban Development Department.
