Vision 2023: Tamil Nadu Taps Higher FSI To Resettle Slum Dwellers in Urban Areas

In his late 50s, Sampath lives in a Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) flat at Kalyanapuram in Vyasarpadi in North Madras. He has been living in the flat for over five decades now and he pays a monthly rent of Rs 450 for the less than 350 square feet ground floor flat that he occupies with his wife and daughter.

“My father had got the initial allotment and we have been living here since then. These flats were constructed when K Kamaraj was chief minister in 1966,” Sampath says with pride in the flat that still looks strong. (The Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board or TNSCB was yet to be born then. Subsequently, these flats were brought under the care of the board.)

The flat has two 10x10 rooms plus a kitchen besides a bathroom and lavatory. There are 48 such blocks that average 18 houses per block with two floors besides the ground floor. These TNSCB flats get drinking water supplied by the Chennai Corporation besides being hooked on to the city’s sewerage line.

“We didn’t avail of the opportunity to buy this flat in 1995-96 when we were offered this at Rs 50,000! Many of our neighbours availed of the opportunity and now own the flats,” says Sampath, who has, however, tiled the floor.

Some 500 metres from Sampath’s flat is the new-looking TNSCB Moorthingar Street Scheme flats. The group of 960 flats were thrown open on 2 February this year to the beneficiaries. While many people have occupied their allotted flats, there are other people who are still coming in.

“I have been born and brought up in this area. We were living in our own small huts and tin structures until a few years ago. We were asked to vacate our places for this huge complex of TNSCB flats to come up. We came here three months ago,” says 51-year-old Abdul Khader.

TNSCB flats under Moorthingar Street scheme is a new experiment by the state government. Efforts are now being made to utilise availability of higher Floor Space Index (FSI) to create more dwellings and settle more number of people in these tenement schemes. As per the new experiment, the complex houses dwellings in ground plus seven floors. Overall, each block houses 96 flats, 12 in each floor.

One reason for the state government to adopt this strategy of tapping higher FSI is because the slums are situated on lands in the core urban areas but equitable distribution of space to all is not feasible. Therefore, the tenants of these lands, on which no one has any objection, are cleared and then multi-storeyed dwellings are constructed and allotted to the same families who lived there earlier.

The Moorthingar Street scheme was drawn in 2010 by the then Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government but it needed the succeeding All-India Anna Dravida Kazhagam (AIADMK) regime to get it going. The scheme faced legal hurdles as some 40 hutment dwellers moved the Madras High Court against the scheme, fearing that they might not be accommodated in the complex. Their petition was dismissed in 2014 with the High Court asking TNSCB to provide the petitioners allotment in the complex. In 2013, some of the residents of the slums here staged a protest demanding that their settlement be made legal. The government, however, refused to grant a legal status since the land belonged to it. Instead, the government assured that they would be accommodated in the new complex.

Construction began in 2014 and by February this year, the flats were all ready for occupation.

“Some 300 families living here were given accommodation at nearby Mullai Nagar in tin sheds. Others were given Rs 8,000 and asked to get accommodation nearby,” said Khader.

The Moorthingar Street TNSCB complex has 10 blocks with two of them being specifically allocated for those dislocated by the Chennai Metro Rail Scheme near Thiruvotriyur.

“We have got accommodation here without any problem. We pay Rs 750 as maintenance charges and Rs 250 as rent for our flat. We are required to make these payments for 20 years,” says Kamal Shah, another tenant of the complex.

According to TNSCB, the 960 dwellings of the Moorthingar Street complex were built at a cost of Rs 112.80 crore with construction of 300 flats getting over in 2015-16 fiscal. Each dwelling is of 440 square feet area with a hall, bedroom kitchen, a balcony, a bathroom and lavatory.

Though Tamil Nadu began constructing flats for slum dwellers, it was in 1970 that TNSCB was set up with the motto of “We shall see God in the smile of the poor”. Initially, TNSCB’s work was centred around Chennai before it spread out to other parts of the State in 1984.

Nearly 48.5 per cent of Tamil Nadu’s population lives in urban areas. According to 2011 census, 14.63 lakh families live in urban slums. TNSCB has so far constructed 1.64 lakh dwellings and developed plots for 1.31 lakh families under urban development projects. A sum of Rs 4,535 crore has been spent so far by TNSCB in improving the livelihood of urban slum families.

Projects like Moorthingar Street complex are part of the state’s “Vision 2023”, a long-term plan for infrastructure development and rapid economic growth in Tamil Nadu. One of Vision 2023’s objective is to make cities and towns in Tamil Nadu slum-free. The state government plans to spend Rs 65,000 crore to make its cities and towns slum-free by utilising grants from the central government under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Housing Plan) and through budget allocations, besides borrowing from various financial institutions, including the World Bank.

Tamil Nadu government’s plans look splendid on paper but the Moorthingar Street scheme beneficiaries have their own grievances that could be seen as pointing to teething problems.

“We are having problems in getting water supply. Even the water that has been collected in the sump is not clean,” says S Mari, a resident.

Chips in K Venkatesh, an auto driver who is also a resident of this dwelling: “There are supposed to be 22 TNSCB workers at this complex to take care of various maintenance work. But seldom have we seen more than six workers.”

“There is also the problem of security. There is no compound wall for our complex. Thieves are free to walk in and walk away with whatever they get,” says Mari.

“We asked the officials for a compound wall. But they are putting their hands up, saying they are helpless as no money has been budgeted for the construction of a compound wall,” says Abdul Khader.

Dasarathan, a resident from a nearby street, says the construction of the flats has helped in the area looking clean and neat. “There are minor problems. But we will have to wait and watch to see the success of this project,” he said.

When approached, the local slum clearance board officials were unwilling to respond. They were not even ready to share details of the Moorthinger Street complex plans saying they were not authorised to speak to the media. The officials were also unsure when their senior official would turn up at the office, saying he had gone for the review of a project.