Chennai: The Union budget-promising house for all by 2022 will be a mirage for homeless in TN as there is no land available for the ongoing housing projects.
State housing projects such as slum clearance schemes and greenhouse projects are already hit due to lack of land, now where is the land in an urbanised state like Tamil Nadu to implement the central housing schemes, rued official sources with state housing department.
At present, Tamil Nadu tops the list of urbanised states with 50 per cent of the population in urban areas and will remain the most urbanised state for the next seven years. Close to 75 per cent of the population will live in Cities by 2025 and already TN land prices have gone beyond the purchase capacity of the public, sources said.
“Both the DMK and the AIADMK have been promising housing for all since 1990’s, but this will continue to be a poll promise for few more years. There are no feasibilities for such massive housing programme under the current scenario”, a senior official said.
Quoting the state figures for the year 2016-2017, the official explained that Tamil Nadu Housing Board has constructed 3,013 numbers of residential units at a cost of '727.91 crore in Chennai, Cuddalore, Villupuram, Erode, Hosur, Madurai, Ramanathapuram and Tirunelveli districts but to attain to this was a Herculean task.
Work are in progress for 20,910 units at an estimated cost of '3,434.58 crore in Chennai and other places all over the state and 11 schemes are now underway.
Over the past two decades, TNHB has created 4,15,740 dwelling units from its inception, but the demand is several folds high and all these figures are minuscule, the official added.
“Providing housing is the most difficult scheme to implement and it is a fact that the realty sector is controlled by the private sectors. And in order to arrest large-scale conversion of agricultural lands for non-agricultural purposes, the state has several policies that promote building construction. Under these circumstances providing a house to all is practically not feasible”, said P Dhamodaran, a retired government official with the state housing department.
