Power disconnected to 209 houses, eviction drive to start

Coimbatore: Almost four months after the city corporation issued eviction notices to encroachers for acquiring land for the Ukkadam Flyover project, the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) disconnected power to 209 houses at CMC Colony on Monday.
The corporation is planning to demolish the houses in a day or two. Once the residents are evicted, the civic body will handover the lands to the highways department for the construction of the flyover.

The 1.48km, four-lane flyover, will connect Vincent Road Junction to Karumbukadai Junction. It will have a loop opposite to the Old Vincent Road for about 388m and a two-lane from Naaz Theatre to Vincent Road for about 248m. The total length of the flyover will be 1.97km.

While more than 175 residents had moved to the housing unit of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) at Malumichampatti, the rest of them were given time to vacate till Tuesday, a corporation official said. “Some have been refusing to move to Malumichampatti as they found it very far and had been demanding houses in and around Ukkadam,” the official said.

Meanwhile, TNSCB, which has been evicting encroachments along the water bodies and road margins along with the city corporation, will resume the eviction drive from Tuesday. “As the occupants had sought time till Diwali, we had halted the drive. We will restart it tomorrow,” a TNSCB official said, adding that they had removed over 1,000 encroachments till date.

TNSCB will remove a total of 4,263 encroachments to felicitate projects including lake restoration. Alternative accommodation is provided to to the encroachers at its housing units at Malumichampatti, Ukkam and Ammankulam.