CHENNAI: Less than a week after Express reported how the Madras Medical Mission had leased its Open Space Reservation (OSR) land to a private entity who has been running a paid parking lot, the Greater Chennai Corporation has initiated the process to reclaim the land and has called for zone-wise consolidation and reassessment of its OSR lands.
The Regional Deputy Commissioner (Central) has written to the member secretary of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) also pointing out that disposal of petition filed by the hospital in the matter has been delayed for years. The corporation officials said the hospital had filed a petition with CMDA requesting to allow it to pay cash and hand over the OSR land back to itself.
“The space occupied by MMM is more than 10,000 sqfeet and it is surprising the request to pay money instead of allocating land wasn’t immediately shot down,” said Balasubramaniam, zonal officer (Ambattur).
Meanwhile, the Works department of City Corporation after calling for the original building plans of MMM found that the parking lot was indeed OSR land allocated to them.
“The OSR land of MMM seems to have slipped by when Ambattur Municipality was merged into corporation. The corporation was taking necessary steps to acquire the OSR land,” said Govinda Rao, Deputy commissioner (works).
When Express contacted a few zonal officers, they said an updated list of such lands marked by CMDA in the last 30 years can help uncover the ones which had slipped by like the MMM’s.