The Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board will in a week begin construction of flats in Vellalore. According to sources, the 144 flats the Board will construct are to compensate the reduction of flats in Ammankulam.
The Board was supposed to have constructed and handed over 936 flats to the Coimbatore Corporation. It could not do so due to structural stability issues – two blocks sank within a week in April 2010.
Consequent upon the sinking, the TNSCB decided to remove the top two floors and leave the structures with only ground and two floors.
The Corporation had asked the Board to construct flats for slum dwellers and those living on encroached land as part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission’s Basic Services for Urban Poor project.
The sources said that the decision to reduce the number of flats had forced the Board to compensate the Corporation. And it has done so by going in for 144 flats in Vellalore. The flats would come up on a two-acre plot on the Chettipalayam Road. The sources said that the Board had March 2014 as the completion date.
Similarly, the Board would also start construction of 1,220 flats in Sugunapuram in a week. The 1,220 would include the 1,064 flats the Board ought to hand over to the Corporation for the loss of flats in Ukkadam.
In 2011, a couple of apartment blocks in Ukkadam sank a few centimetres. Following advice by an expert body, the Board decided to reduce the number of floors to reduce the weight.
The move had left the Board with the need to compensate the Corporation with 1,064 flats. The sources said that the 1,220 flats the Board had proposed in Sugunapuram would include the 1,064. And the flats would come up on 10-acre plot.
Here again, the Board would start the work in a week.
The aforementioned Vellalore and Sugunapuram projects would be in addition to the Keeranatham and Madukkarai projects the Board would commence at the same time.
As for the status of the flats in Ammankulam, the sources said that the Board would be in a position to hand them over to the Corporation by March this year and the Ukkadam flats by October.
The Board was left with only works laying linking sewerage, constructing roads, etc. in Ammankulam. As for Ukkadam, it had floated tenders for the demolition of the top two floors, as mentioned earlier.
The demolition work called for expertise, which was not available in Tamil Nadu. In the second tender floated for the work, the Board had received bids from companies in Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
Once the tender finalisation committee decided on the bidder, the Board would start the work in a couple of months.
