CHENNAI: Over four decades ago, Meenatchi Sundaram believed the housing plot allotted to his family on Kandapillai Street in Perambur under the Madras Urban Development Project (MUDP) would become their legal property. He completed hire-purchase instalments in 1992, but his family is yet to receive the sale deed. His 70-year-old son M Arasu still visits Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board (TNUHDB) offices seeking the document his late parents, the original allottees, never received.
“I am afraid I, too, may not receive the sale deed before I close my eyes. I hope my children and grandchildren will not have to continue this struggle,” Arasu told TNIE.
Between 1977 and 1997, the state implemented the World Bank-financed MUDP and TNUDP, under which eligible families were to receive freehold ownership after completing prescribed payments. Of the 726 settlements developed under the projects statewide for 1.37 lakh families, land alienation remains pending in 143 including 14 of 40 in Madurai, where only 33% of beneficiaries have sale deeds, and 77 of 399 in Chennai, across MUDP I & II and TNUDP I & II.
Kandapillai Street, where Arasu and 48 other families live, is one of them. “The land allotted to us still belongs to HR&CE department. In 1982, the then TN Slum Clearance Board allotted the plots under MUDP after obtaining only ‘enter upon’ permission. As the board did not pay the amount required to transfer the land, the plots were never formally alienated in its favour,” Arasu said.
Residents said HR&CE has now begun collecting temple land rent from them, despite having completed their hire-purchase payments to TNSCB. Arasu said he was asked to pay Rs 1,300 a month, with arrears of around Rs 1.2 lakh, while another resident Dilli Ganesh G said he had been asked to pay `4 lakh. Even where land alienation has been completed, obtaining sale deeds remains difficult.
A case study by NGO IRCDUC in Shastri Nagar, developed under MUDP in 1988, found that though alienation was completed in 2018, several eligible families still await ownership documents. At least four beneficiaries died before receiving theirs, leaving heirs to establish succession.
S Karthik, legal heir of original allottees late Chellammal and Subramani, died of heart attack after reapplying for sale deed in 2025. “We even received a letter asking my husband to collect the sale deed, but he was bedridden and could not go. After his death, I followed up repeatedly but got no response,” said Karthik’s wife Valarmathi (35), a housekeeping staff earning Rs 10,000/month, who now supports two school-going daughters while struggling to clear the hire-purchase dues.
Even original allottees who paid in full aren’t spared. Kannan N (42), whose mother is the original allottee of a Shastri Nagar plot, said the family cleared over Rs 28,000 in dues last year but is yet to get the sale deed.
Residents said the dues demanded by the board change with no clarity. A 2007 World Bank review found repeated revisions in land pricing under successive GOs, after beneficiaries had begun paying, caused confusion. GOs in 1993 and 1995 raised prices by over 30% for even the smallest Chennai plots.
Purchasers who bought MUDP/TNUDP properties from original allottees decades ago also remain in limbo, with no policy to regularise such transactions. In Shastri Nagar, Vijayakumari (62) repeatedly sought a sale deed for a purchased property but died without securing it. A senior housing department official said a GO to make purchasers legal had been proposed but never approved. “Steps will be taken to establish a policy after consulting the government.”
In June 2024, the state formed a high-level committee, chaired by then deputy CM Udhayanidhi Stalin, to expedite sale deed issuance in Chennai and nearby areas. Some families benefited, but many were left behind, officials said, adding the panel remains active though there is no clarity on who heads it now.
Calling the delay an injustice, IRCDUC founder Vanessa Peter urged government action for families of deceased beneficiaries, a sale deed and land title cell in TNUHDB, and review of settlement-wise progress.
A senior TNUHDB official said some sale deeds were issued after a high-level meeting last year but no action followed. As available data dates back to 1996, a fresh survey is needed to gauge the backlog, the official said, adding an action plan is being prepared and cases involving objectionable poramboke lands would need separate handling. Claiming that nearly 60% of beneficiaries had received sale deeds, another official said delays for allottees who had completed payments would be fixed soon.