COIMBATORE: The Town Planning Department officials of the Coimbatore City Municipal Corporation (CCMC) retrieved OSR land worth Rs 4 crore after 64 years based on the High Court order here on Monday. One of the encroachments included an AIADMK party office.
In Ondipudur SMS Layout at Ward 57 of the East zone of the city, 65 cents of OSR land for school and playground was allotted for 65 housing plots as per the 10 per cent public allotment in 1960 for 6.64 acres of residential layout by the DTCP.
Out of the 65 per cent of land allotted for school and playground, only 46 cent was donated by the layout owner to the CCMC in 1991 (currently a corporation school has been built in the 46 per cent of land) and the remaining 19 per cent of the playground land was illegally sold as three housing plots by the heirs of the layout owner and few miscreants encroached that land, covered it with steel sheets, and put up a notice board stating that the land belonged to a private part.
They also got an electric connection in two cents and built an AIADMK part office and a rental shop. Later, as the encroachers filed a case against the CCMC Commissioner in HC seeking directions to instruct civic body to calculate the Vacant Land Tax (VLT), the HC passed an order against the encroachers.
As the HC verdict came in favour of the civic body, the corporation decided to remove the encroachments and retrieve the property.