C Shivakumar
Chennai:
Tamil Nadu Housing Board has not acquired land for the last 20 to 25 years and is facing land crunch to develop new projects, according to a TNHB official.
Speaking to Express on the sidelines of Confederation of Indian Industry conference on Affordable Housing for All here on Friday, a TNHB official told Express that TNHB is now going in for joint venture with people having land. “Lot of people from Arakonam and Hosur have showed interest in the joint venture,” the official added.
He also highlighted that TNHB is currently involved in legal battle over 3,000 land acquisition cases.
The state housing board is also facing a staff crunch with lack of recruitment drive by the government. “There were attempts to fill in the post of technical officers but only 32 applicants turned up as such TNHB was unable to fill in the posts,” the official said.
Due to the shortage the project management consultants are handling the projects of TNHB. Interestingly, few projects of TNHB which had been awarded to private consultant has yet to find takers. There were lot of queries to develop vacant lands in Ashok Nagar and Koyambedu under public private participation. But on the day of tenders nobody participated, he said.
Meanwhile, TNHB is planning to revive its cellular concrete plant in Ennore which helped in manufacturing of aerated concrete block using fly ash. The plant, which had Polish technology, was closed in 1992 and many parts of its machinery were stolen by miscreants. “Currently Indian institute of Technology has estimated that the plant still has machinery worth Rs 1.5 crore and we are looking for public private participation in reviving the plant,” he said.
He also said that land acquisition issues are one of the main reasons in developing Thirumazhisai Satellite Township. The biggest issue is to acquire 12 acres of land for building approach road. The township is expected to have 12,000 residential units and is being built at a cost of Rs 2,160 crore.
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