Corporation’s eviction drive along waterbodies gains momentum

COIMBATORE: After a hiatus, the Coimbatore Corporation along with the Tamil Nadu slum clearance board (TNSCB) has resumed its encroachment eviction drive along the waterbodies in the city.
An official from the corporation said, “A total of 4,263 encroachments along the waterbodies were identified. Of them, 3,500 were removed. The remaining encroachments would be removed at the earliest. Alternative accommodation was facilitated for about 75% of them at the housing units of the TNSCB.”
A TNSCB official said, “The encroachers along the waterbodies were provided alternative accommodation at free of cost as the corporation had paid Rs 22 crore to the TNSCB under the ‘Smart City’ mission. Otherwise, each encroacher should pay Rs 36,000 per house. With corporation’s fund, TNSCB has provided houses to about 7,000 families. Once the encroachments are cleared, the corporation could execute the lake rejuvenation and restoration project.”
Explaining that the houses would be given only to eligible people through district collector or heads of the department, the official said there are numerous instances where encroachers are cheated by promising that arrangements could be made to purchase TNSCB house for Rs 1 lakh.
The official said the next drive would be to move encroachers from Majid Colony and GM Nagar near Ukkadam and Muthanan Kulam. Alternative accommodations were already allotted to them. He said the drive would be conducted in the coming weeks.
A couple of days ago, officials distributed tokens to 206 households residing near Indian roller flour mill at Ganapathyputhur to accommodate them in one of the TNSCB housing units.
Apart from this, the public works department (PWD) along with TNSCB has removed 167 households along Rajavaikal channel.
“Alternative accommodation was provided to all of them. As this does not come under the purview of ‘Smart City’ projects and the encroachments were removed to safeguard the channel, the residents had to pay for the accommodation. Only if the encroachments were removed, the channels which carried water to Vellalore tank, could be desilted,” a senior official from PWD said. A few years ago, PWD had removed over 2,000 households from the locality.
Meanwhile, the corporation has identified another 2,500 encroachments along Sanganoor channel and a proposal was sent to headquarters to construct a housing unit at Periyaniackenpalyam to provide them alternative accommodation.
The official said there are encroachments in few other places and it would be covered under the housing for all scheme.
Recently, the corporation disconnected electricity supply to 252 houses at Jeeva Nagar and demolished over 90 houses in the locality.
A corporation official said convincing the residents of Jeeva Nagar was a tedious task as they have been residing at the location for generations together.
“For instance, we gave two year-time before disconnecting electricity power to the residents of Jeeva Nagar. Apart from issuing eviction notice to all the households, five flex banners were erected at five locations in the locality explaining why we urge them to move to a better location which has all the basic facilities,” the official said.