The Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) should take concerted actions to achieve its objectives and provide benefits to families living in city slums.
This is among the many important revelations on the functioning of the Board in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) that was tabled in the Assembly recently.
The report clearly states that the CAG had raised certain issues with the Tamil Nadu Government in August 2014, but they did not get any reply even by December of the same year
The striking observation in the CAG’s report is that the prolonged delay in commencement and subsequent execution of flats meant for families evicted along the city waterways resulted in the project’s cost soaring by Rs. 75 crore.
High-rise complexes
The report looks at the project in Ezhil Nagar in Perumbakkam Village Panchayat, where the State government is in the process of constructing high-rise apartment complexes in several blocks to accommodate over 20,000 families from the city.
The project was fraught with delays right from the beginning, the report notes.
Though the State government gave its sanction and ‘enter upon’ permission to take over the land for the housing project in January 2007, TNSCB approached Kancheepuram district administration only in December that year.
More importantly, TNSCB had planned to construct nearly 24,000 homes in 81.2 hectares of land – a density of 294 homes per hectare – way above the norms of only 150 homes per hectare as specified in National Building Code, the CAG report said.
Tsunami rehabilitation project
The CAG has also written about the delay in implementing the Marina housing project under the Emergency Tsunami Rehabilitation Project.
The TNSCB, the report said, had remitted Rs. 60 crore of unspent funds back to the State government and that despite the availability of funds to the extent of Rs. 79.9 crore, over 2,000 people affected in Tsunami of 2004 continued to live in dilapidated structures.
The CAG concludes that the Board should withdraw funds from its personal deposits account based on actual requirements for effective use and speed up allotment of tenements constructed under different schemes to the families living in slums.
(Statistics mentioned in the CAG report are applicable till March 2014).
