Corporation fails to track assets

The public information officer of Chennai corporation in a reply to RTI activist R. Natarajan had admitted that the corporation was unaware of who was in possession of the shops it had rented out in T Nagar. The reply further reads that the corporation premises rented out to the primary lessee could not be rented out to a sub lessee, but confirms that there had been no action against the sub lessee.

The city is full of encroachments and private people enjoy possession of government properties, and despite complaints and RTI petitions corporation officials tried to safeguard the miscreants, alleged Natarajan. “It’s only after appeals that I have data confirming encroachments of the corporation-allotted shops on Usman Road,” he said.

“Recently, I lodged a complaint related to ward 173, informing the corporation that government poromboke land and the corporation’s vacant plots were being encroached near Jafeerkhanpet VSM garden, but there was no action,” said R. Nagappan, a resident of West Mambalam.

The civic engineers who conducted preliminary enquiries to verify the land records told their seniors that they had to rely on the data available with the state revenue authorities, he added.

A corporation official denied that the land and estate department had no records related to corporation properties. The records are intact for all corporation properties, but in the case of allotted shops and plots, there is a need for upgradation and new areas have been annexed to the corporation limits, the official pointed out.