CHENNAI: Information and Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC), an NGO that works for uplifting the deprived urban communities, has launched an eviction and displacement observatory on Tuesday. During the launch, the NGO also released a report reiterating the need for strengthening the resettlement and rehabilitation policy.
The online observatory has information related to evictions across the state. From January 2022 to May 2025, around 9,724 families have been evicted across the state with nearly 39,000 people being resettled. Chennai and Coimbatore had the highest number of evictions. Currently, around 53,465 families comprising 2.13 lakh individuals across eight districts in the state continue to face eviction threats.
In Chennai alone, 22,234 families were evicted across 95 settlements since December 2015, with 26,403 families now facing the threat of eviction. Chennai corporation, in its climate action plan, states around 65,000 families stand to be resettled. Notably, only five of the 95 settlements had Social Impact Assessment (SIA) and resettlement action plans, leaving 88% of these resettlements evicted in mid-academic year affecting the children’s education.
The observatory also displays the graphical representation on the number of families evicted and resettled along with mappings of existing relocation settlements in the city since 2000.
With no proper resettlement action plan, it said TNUHDB was unable to plan mitigation measures to address issues related to vulnerabilities, loss of livelihood, and education of children. Till date, some children continue to travel 3 to 4 hours/day travelling 40 to 50 Km to access education from the Perumbakkam resettlement site.
The report suggests that the R&R framework must be replaced with proper R&R policy.