CHENNAI: The State government will have to evict more than 4,000 families from the alignment of the 17.5 km Maduravoyal-Chennai Port elevated corridor project to restart the work that remains stalled for more than five years.
As the finalisation of Detailed Project Report is hardly less than two months away, officials are looking at resettling the families. Sources said, till now, 10.9km stretch had been cleared from encroachments and the challenge lay in clearing the hutments along 6.6 km.
As per the enumeration, there were 6,970 families and till now 1.2km of the 6.6km area had been cleared of hutments.
“A total of 1,084 families living in hutments along the alignment have been cleared and work has commenced in evicting remaining 5,886 families residing on the 5.4 km stretch,” sources said.
“Already efforts have been made by Public Works Department and Greater Chennai Corporation who have evicted 1,876 families from the alignment in 2017. The remaining 4,010 project-affected families may be resettled at Perumbakkam, sources added.
Meanwhile, the State government is also considering resettling the commercial units along the alignment to Auto Nagar at Maraimalai Nagar.
It is learnt that development works were undertaken at a cost of Rs 25 crore at Appur and Perumalthangal villages covering an area of 16.91 hectares. Totally, 1657 commercial entities had been identified to be resettled along with families.
It was in 2011 that the revised rehabilitation and resettlement cost of the project was worked out to be Rs 470 crore.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) deposited Rs 46.50 crore with slum clearance board for rehabilitation and resettlement of project-affected families. It has to deposit a balance of Rs 188.50 crore.
Meanwhile, sources indicated since the State government did not acquire the land due to non-release of funds, the compensation now could be paid as per the new land acquisition Act, which could cost the exchequer dearly.
Figure it out
No of project-affected families: 6,970
Evicted in 2009: 1,084
Evicted in 2017: 1,876
Families still to be evicted: 4,010