The State government has constituted a two-member committee comprising retired bureaucrats to suggest ways for effective utilisation of the lands acquired by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) for various projects.
According to official sources, the Department of Housing and Urban Development constituted a committee comprising retired IAS officers V. Palanikumar and C. Munianathan. They would provide recommendation to the State government on how to proceed with several acres of land that remained unutilised by the TNHB and where implementation of schemes was not feasible. It would also suggest a policy to be adopted to recoup the amount spent on land acquisition and development.
G.S. Sameeran, Managing Director, TNHB, said the committee would take up issues pertaining to lands classified as category III (award passed but possession not taken) and category IV (award passed but encroached). The extent of land covered under these two categories would be around 5,706 acres across the State. He said the TNHB, in the first phase, had released lands to the extent of 2,502 acres in October and December last year, which were in the pre-award stage as per the Land Acquisition Act, 1894.
The State government’s intervention was a part of ‘Mudhalvarin Munnaeduppu Thittam’ in which nearly 4,488 petitions were received from the members of public pertaining to land acquisition issues. The decision to release the lands was taken following the orders of the State government, withdrawing the land acquisition proceedings in Madurai, Salem, Coimbatore, Chennai and a few other regions based on the recommendations of a high level committee constituted for addressing the grievances of the public. A total of 499.85 acres of land notified in Chennai district were released in December, last year.
