Perumbakkam settlement to become an integrated township

Chennai:

Tamil Nadu government has reduced the number of tenements in Perumbakkam from 30,000 to 27,000 in a bid to make the settlement an integrated township, according to Housing and Urban Development Secretary K Phanindra Reddy.

Speaking during a session on Estate South 2012, he said that his department reduced the tenements to 27,000 in a bid to create commercial activity in the area which could create jobs for the residents.

Unlike Kannagi Nagar settlement, Perumbakkam will have necessary infrastructure like water services, a bus terminus, ration shop, schools and medical facilities and people will be shifted only when all the infrastructure is in place, Reddy said.

There are also plans to provide free bus passes for five years to the residents in the locality, he added.

Interestingly, there are fears among the segment of real estate developers that the slum dwellers would sell the flats at the market rate and move back to slums making the scheme a failure. But Reddy assured them that the state government is creating a central registry of eligible beneficiaries and has started biometric registration.

He said there were instances when the slumlords get a lion’s share of 10-15 tenements in such scheme and rent it out. “Now with this process slumlords are losing their hold in the slums,” he added.