CHENNAI: The Special Intensive Revision (SIR) work at the sites where old Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development’s (TNUHDB) apartments have been taken up for reconstruction is proving to be a huge challenge, as the residents of these tenements have temporarily relocated and hundreds of enumeration forms are yet to be distributed as Booth Level Officers (BLOs) do not have their current addresses.
Even in cases where BLOs managed to distribute the forms, a large percentage of them are yet to be returned.
With only eight days remaining for the enumeration phase and the Greater Chennai Corporation winding up the dedicated help desks it had set up in every polling booth, by Tuesday, officials said the risk of a large number of these families getting excluded from the draft rolls is high.
The percentage of families yet to be covered in the enumeration phase ranged between 40-70% in the three sites. When TNIE checked in-person, the actual scale of potential exclu sion could be significantly higher as TNUHDB officials stated that 35 reconstruction projects were presently under way in and around Chennai.
During reconstruction, TNUHDB residents from low income families, who pay only a nominal maintenance fee, often relocate to their relatives’ houses or cheaper rental accommodation in faraway places as the sudden need to shell out a few thousand rupees as rent poses a significant challenge.
TNIE visited two sites – Sathyamoorthy Nagar and Meenambal Sivaraj Nagar – where reconstruction is over, but families are yet to move back, and Andimaniyam Thottam where the reconstruction is under way.
At Sathyamoorthy Nagar in Vyasarpadi, five blocks of reconstructed TNUHDB tenements were inaugurated by Deputy Chief Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin in October. Of the 523 families who vacated in 2020 for reconstruction, only about 10 families have returned till now. As of Tuesday, an official involved in SIR said around 400 enumeration forms remained unfilled as they couldn’t trace the people due to unavailability of their phone numbers as well.
“As the special camps are over, residents can still contact the BLO till December 4, the deadline for form submission,” she said.
At Andimaniyam Thottam, residents vacated their old tenements as reconstruction of 702 residential units is under way. Of around 1,100 voters in the tenement area, around 740 have been traced and issued forms. About 380 forms are pending and a majority of them not yet distributed as the residents could not be contacted.
“Many have not just moved within the locality, but to wherever they could find a house at affordable rent until the reconstruction is over,” the official said. “Through a few initial contacts, we were able to reach several of them via the former residents’ WhatsApp group, but many who are not part of the group remain completely unreachable,” the official added.
A former resident who reached the help desk on its last day said, “I came here only because I met a neighbour by chance who told me about it.”
At Meenambal Sivaraj Nagar, reconstruction of 308 residential units was completed and the building was inaugurated in September. However, only around 60 families have moved back till now.
An official said the booth covered about 1,210 voters, of which nearly 800 are TNUHDB residents. Of these, 150 are yet to receive forms as their present location is not known, while around 450 forms are yet to be returned.
The official said Booth Level Agents of political parties and residents helped spread the word initially, which helped many in collecting the forms. “But, when it comes to returning the forms, even after sourcing numbers and calling, several do not respond,” she said.
A TNUHDB official said residents are unable to return immediately for practical reasons, which include inability to immediately end the rent or lease agreements in their present residences and academic year of their children under way. Acknowledging that the board and GCC held discussions regarding this issue, the official said GCC was largely handling the tracing of residents.