The Greater Chennai Corporation’s drive to trace the missing OSR (Open Space Reserve) lands in all its 15 zones has hit a roadblock, owing to the reluctance of ward-level junior engineers to identify such lands and share information. The Chennai Corporation Commissioner D. Karthikeyan on April 7, 2017 ordered all zonal level officers to start verifying OSR lands based on the approved layout copy and planning permission applications. Of the 15 zones, just two zones have sent information on OSR lands for “necessary action.”
Work on verifyingOSR lands in 13 zones has been disrupted. As per estimates, at least 388 OSR lands in the erstwhile municipalities and panchayats covering the added areas were yet to be used for development of parks or playgrounds by the Chennai Corporation. According to sources , many of the OSR lands have been grabbed by a few persons in collusion with civic authorities at the local level before the merger of the municipalities, town panchayats and village panchayats in 2011. Many of the land records and planning permission records had not been handed over to the Chennai Corporation even six years after the local bodies merged with the civic body.
In addition to the added areas, officials at the seven zones of the core city area have also not been able to trace many records relating to OSR lands.
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The Chennai Corporation had asked the zonal level officials to inspect the planned layouts and verify whether the land reserved for parks was not encroached. Officials had also been asked to initiate “necessary action for removal of encroachments” once such illegal buildings or structures were identified.
The zonal level officials have been asked to send the details of encroachments to the Parks Department of the Chennai Corporation and the Land and Estates Department for removal of such encroachments. Officials would also trace the copies of the approved layout and enclosed planning permission applications and send them to each of the 200 ward offices, Parks Department, Land and Estates Department and the Works Department for the purpose of maintaining record. “We are planning to maintain records at multiple departments. This may reduce land grabbing,” an official said.