Puliyur Main Road in Trustpuram has the trappings of an unexceptionable thoroughfare. Just like any other road, it has wounds to lick. Densely populated, it appears narrow during rush hour. With the Trustpuram Canal (whose job description, rainwater-carrier, is in conflict with its workaday duty, sewage-carrier), slithering along a parallel road (Puliyur First Main Road), residents of Puliyur Main Road put aside an annual sum towards the purchase of electric mosquito swatters. However, these wounds never leave a deep gash, one that would warrant the attention of the wider world. And, this road does not possess landmark buildings; nor is it part of a VIP route. It is however partially redeemed from this unremarkableness: A landmark pillar is plonked in the middle of where this road forms a junction with two minor roads in Trustpuram.
The pillar is a signpost to a post-Independence Madras that was in the throes of expansion and development. It symbolises a ₹20 lakh Low Income Group Housing Scheme, sponsored by the Government of India and executed by the Madras City Improvement Trust (usually referred to as ‘CIT’), the forerunner of the Tamil Nadu Housing Board. The pillar marks the inauguration of the scheme by then Chief Minister K Kamaraj, on December 2, 1955. At that time, Captain D Gnanaolivu was the chairman of CIT.
The Madras City Improvement Trust played a stellar role in ensuring housing for people with modest pay packets — in current terms, it functioned as a big promoter of affordable homes.
From a report in The Hindu Archives, on the same day (December 2, 1955), the Chief Minister had inaugurated another group-housing project of the same kind by CIT in Mandavelipakkam, near RA Puram. To this day, there is a marker of this initiative in the locality. Out of the 250 houses offered as part of the scheme, 79 houses went to Mandavelipakkam-RA Puram. In the neighbourhood, streets that came under the scheme have names with ‘Trust’ stamped into them.
The report from The Hindu Archives offers a snatch of information provided by Captain D Gnanaolivu during the event, throwing light on the housing scheme.
“The Chairman of the Trust said the Union Government would advance as loan ₹8,000 for every house on condition that ₹2000 was advanced by the allottee as cash or in the shape of a developed plot. The loan was repayable in 20 years. The Trustees wanted the allottees to give only ₹900 as advance, in three instalments in the course of nine months, and this had been approved by the Government.”
The report provides a break-up of how the 250 units would be distributed.
RA Puram-Mandavelipakkam would have 79 houses; Trustpuram, 100 houses; CIT Nagar, Saidapet, 28; Shenoy Nagar, 32; and the remaining 11 houses will come up in other places.
The bottlenecks
An editorial from The Hindu Archives, this one dating back to March 1957, shines the searchlight on the bottlenecks that prevented CIT from assuming a wider bandwidth while seeking to reach out to people with thinner pay packets, with its helpful offer of affordable housing.
This issue formed the tone of an address then Union Minister of Finance, Krishnamachari made to a gathering marking the inauguration of yet another low-income group housing scheme by CIT.
The editorial, dated March 7, 1957 reads: “The Union Government has shown a certain measure of sympathy, but their scheme of assistance for slum clearance has not made much headway because the Centre’s contribution has to be matched by a 25 per cent contribution from the State Government. Mr. Krishnamachari rightly asked whether the unfortunate slum dwellers should be made to suffer because the State Government would not or could not find its share of the money needed for improvement.
He went so far as to say that the Union Government should assume the entire responsibility and must go ahead with its programme of assistance for improving slums regardless of what the State Governments did.”
A signpost to the past in East Abhiramapuram
At East Abhiramapuram in Mylapore, a colourful pillar stands, beatifically gazing upon three roads. East Abhiramapuram Second Street, which is in its line of sight. Justice Sundaram Road, which it has to crane its long neck to gaze at. Canal Bank Road however garners the lion’s share of its attention as it stands bang on that road.
This pillar on Canal Bank Road in East Abhiramapuram, Mylapore has ‘CIT’ (referring to the City Improvement Trust) inscribed into it. | Photo Credit: PRINCE FREDERICK
A robust four-sided structure forms the pillar’s “buttress”, with two sides bearing the name of the locality, East Abhiramapuram, in English on one side and Tamil on the other.
The remaining two sides draw attention to the City Improvement Trust — the letters “CIT” inscribed into them in capital form, again similarly in Tamil and in English.
The pillar echoes a tradition followed by the Madras City Improvement Trust (a precursor of Tamil Nadu Housing Board) in the 1950s and 60s, whenever it sought to start an affordable housing scheme in a particular locality.
