CHENNAI: A high-level committee comprising senior officers of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), Water Resources Department, Revenue Department and Greater Chennai Corporation will examine the proposal to reclassify six acres of land in Nandambakkam, which is marked as portion of Adyar river in the Second Master Plan map, as residential and school building.
According to official sources, the authority meeting of CMDA decided to appoint the committee to check the genuineness of revenue records, whether the land is a government poramboke or private patta land or whether it is a waterbody. It is learnt that the committee is likely to submit the report in the next authority meeting.
Interestingly, the first authority meeting of CMDA held under the DMK regime prevented attempts to reclassify the land. However, seven months down the line, officials have been questioning the Second Master Plan of their department while claiming the revenue records show it as a private patta land.
Association of Professional Town Planners (APTP) president KM Sadanand said the government should measure the Adyar River as per the 1910 map if it wants to protect the city from floods. Prof S Janakrajan, President South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies, said revenue records pertaining to A register (1910) should be taken into account and not the latest one.