Chennai: (with Pix and Graphix)
More than 852 acres of prime land, which were initially acquired for airport expansion, has been lying idle for nearly seven years as it has yet to be reclassified by Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority.
The land, acquired in 2007, was not put to use for parallel runway as Airport Authority of India in 2011 has dropped the plan stating that no significant improvement in aircraft movement would be achieved due to long taxiing time involved.
However, the acquired land was not denotified and one of the land owner sought Madras High Court direction to denotify the land. It was in January 2, 2014 after the order was passed, the land was denotified by passing a Government Order on January 30, 2014.
Interestingly, four years after Madras High Court order, the residents have little to cheer. “The issue is while the acquired land has been denotified, the land use plan map has not been changed as a result no development can take place, says EVP Township Plot Owners Association secretary S Somasekaran.
“The map still shows the land as institutional land. We have been urging CMDA to reclassify the land as primary residential one but it has failed to do so,” says Somasekaran.
The denotified land is located at Manapakkam, Gerugambakkam, Kolapakkam, Tharapakkam and Kovur villages in Sriperumbudur taluk of Kancheepuram district. Sources said appropriate land use has to be assigned taking into consideration planning permissions, approved layouts, reclassifications and ground conditions etc.
It is learnt that two years ago a comprehensive reclassification proposal was prepared and placed before technical committee on January 19, 2016 which recommended that lands falling under layouts should be assigned primary residential use zone.
It also sought details of maximum flood level with regard to 2015 floods from Public Works Department for zoning of flood prone areas. But since then nothing moved except another meeting which was held on April 2018. It also failed to arrive at a decision.
The blame lies in Masterplan department which has failed to perform its statutory duties of reviewing Masterplan every five years and holding committee meetings regularly. A total of 500 landuse plans have been reclassified but masterplan has not been updated. Somasekaran says with no other alternative left, his association has filed a Contempt of Court petition in High Court.
Factfile:
1. More than 852 acres of prime land, initially acquired for airport expansion, were denotified in 2014
2. The land could be developed only if CMDA reclassifies the land.
3. More than 100 housing projects have been hit in the area
4. Two technical meetings held but reclassification by CMDA’s Masterplan division is still pending.
5. Masterplan Division has been non-functional since 2008 as Second Masterplan has not been reviewed
6. Five hundred files reclassified but it has not been updated in Masterplan
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