A few houses and shops in Meenambakkam were demolished on Tuesday to make way for the Chennai Metro Rail project. The structures were located along the Metro's alignment between St. Thomas Mount and Chennai airport, opposite Trident Hotel.
While families, who had been living there for about 150 years termed the move as “arbitrary” and “unfair”, officials said they had followed all the norms.
Workers engaged by Chennai Metro Rail Limited used an earthmover to demolish the houses in addition to an office of a travel agency, an automobile service centre and a mess. The work was carried out under the supervision of revenue officials from the Alandur taluk.
The land was a government property and classified as ‘poromboke' (unassessed waste land). Notices to the occupants to leave the property were issued well in advance. The Alandur taluk office said the buildings that were demolished occupied a land measuring about 34,000 square feet.
The families whose houses were demolished said they had been living at the same spot for the last 150 years. Their ancestor, Kannaiah Naidu, was running a mess catering to the requirement of the British and also to the local population during the pre-independence days. For several years, they had been applying for a patta (land ownership document). “The previous government had announced that those living on government land even for 10 to 15 years would be given pattas. But we have been living here for more than a century and have documents to prove it, but were denied pattas,” said Rajeswari, Kannaiah's descendant.
The mess that was demolished was in the name of Amruthammal, her mother. “We knew once the route of the metro rail project was announced that our houses will go and approached CMRL authorities, who assured us that no arbitrary action would be taken against them,” said Narayanan, Rajeswari's brother. He added that CMRL also gave an assurance that their property would be taken possession of only after the residents were relocated.
“Had they issued the pattas on time, we could have at least applied for adequate compensation from CMRL or the State government,” said Ms. Rajeswari.
CMRL Managing Director K.Rajaraman denied that the action was taken arbitrarily. “All the norms were followed before demolishing the structures. Also, adequate notice was given to the occupants of the houses and shops.” He said that the building owners have been offered Rs.25,000 each as interim relief/moving allowance. Further, five tenements built by Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board in Peerkankaranai have been allotted to them.
Work on the two metro corridors is currently under way – Washermenpet to Airport and Chennai Central to St.Thomas Mount. There are 36 stations along the two corridors and 18 of them are located entirely on government properties. The remaining 18 stations are located partly on private properties. In all, 14 hectares of private lands would be acquired for the metro project.
