Coimbatore's urban slum dwellers to get flats soon

Concrete houses for the urban poor who live on encroached lands will soon be a reality. Photo: M. Periasamy

Towards the end of this month, the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board may handover the apartments it had built on behalf of the Coimbatore Corporation for the urban poor.

According to sources, the construction of apartments containing 792 flats in Ammankulam was almost complete and the Board was giving finishing touches.

The Board began constructing 904 flats in Ammankulam sometime in 2008 for the Corporation, which had obtained funds for the same from the Central Government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission scheme’s Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) component.

Under the BSUP, the Corporation was to help urban poor have better houses by providing financial assistance to those who had title deeds but lived in thatched roof houses, and flats to those who did not have title deeds and lived on encroached land along water bodies and on government lands.

As per the scheme, the Board began constructing the flats in Ammankulam in 16 blocks.

Structural stability

A year after the start of the construction, one of the blocks sank a few inches into the ground raising questions about the structural stability of the apartment blocks under construction.

The Board had to marshal the resources of structural engineers from engineering colleges and technical institutions for remedial action. Based on the advice, the Board demolished a block to bring down the number of flats to 792.

The sources said that the Board had also provided sewerage, street light, community hall and other facilities for the residents to-be in Ammankulam.

Once it handed over the apartments, the Corporation would relocate the beneficiaries identified and once the latter shifted, would demolish their old houses.

The sources said that the process of handing over the houses and demolishing the old houses could take a few more months.

The Board was also keen to complete the Ukkadam project, where it was building 2,904 flats under the same scheme, sources said. It was building a few more apartments across the city to relocate the urban poor.