The State Government has evolved a policy of land acquisition for housing projects, which will enable landowners to become shareholders of schemes with a view to avoiding unnecessary delays and disputes. Replying to the debate on the demand of grants for housing and slum clearance, Housing Minister Suba. Thangavelan said under the proposed policy, lands required for the schemes would be purchased by direct negotiation with landowners. It also provided for allotment of developed house sites, houses or flats to landowners towards part settlement of compensation for lands acquired.

The Government had decided to launch a hollow blocks-manufacturing unit in the joint sector using fly ash as raw material, which would be supplied from the Ennore thermal power plant, Mr. Thangavelan said. It would manufacture strong but weightless blocks by adopting scientific methods to meet the requirements of the construction works undertaken on a large scale by the Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) and other government departments. The Electricity department had come forward to earmark sufficient quantity of fly ash for this project.

Under the rental housing scheme, 992 flats, which were in bad shape, would be replaced by 1,040 new ones to be constructed on a 20-acre site on the Foreshore Estate in Chennai as a joint venture at an estimated cost of Rs. 95 crore, he said.

A total of 40,000 sale deeds that had not been issued for the last several years would be handed over to allottees this year. They would be distributed immediately after working out the final cost of the projects implemented on government sites.

Mr. Thangavelan said a samadhan scheme would be implemented to hold direct talks with the landowners with a view to ending all the cases related to land acquisition pending before the High Court. The TNHB would implement e-governance in a phased manner at a cost of Rs.224 lakh, he said, adding that Rs.50 lakh was likely to be spent in the current financial year. The Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board would commence construction of 42,231 tenements in urban areas under various schemes at a total cost of Rs.634.78 crore during 2007-2008.

Each tenement would have a minimum built-up area of 270 sq.ft. Participating in the debate, Anitha R.Radhakrishnan (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) said though the previous government took steps to shift the Secretariat to a new venue, the then Opposition parties scuttled the Rs.500-crore project.

P. Kannan (Pattali Makkal Katchi) said the poor and the downtrodden, who wanted to purchase flats or tenements, were misguided by some government officers into entering a debt trap. K. Balabarathi (Communist Party of India-Marxist) urged the Government to announce waiver of interest and penal interest on housing loans raised by the poor. Source: TheHindu