6,000 families in Chennai slums to be evicted without resettlement plan
- The State government agencies have identified close to 6,000 families who are to be evicted and sent to the outskirts for resettlement
- The Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board has prepared Resettlement Action Plans (RAPs) for only two slums
- Many families were also not served the eviction notice
FollowThousands of families from Chennai’s slums will be evicted in two weeks time to clear the slums and rehabilitate the residents. The only problem is that there is no resettlement plan for these families.
The New Indian Express has reported that the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board has prepared Resettlement Action Plans (RAPs) for only the slums in Pallavan Salai and Navalar Nedunchezhian Salai, neither of which is in the first list prepared for evictions.
The State government agencies have identified close to 6,000 families who are to be evicted and sent to the outskirts for resettlement.
An RTI filed by Information and Resource Centre for the Deprived Urban Communities revealed that there were no plans for the first list of families that will be evicted soon.
The slum board identified a total of 14,257 families as dwellers on objectionable land. Around 6,000 families in 15 locations have been identified by the Greater Chennai Corporation and the Public Works Department along with the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board for evictions set to begin in July.
A senior slum board official cited the Madras High Court’s order late last year which had expedited the process of evicting 55,000 ‘encroachers’ as the reason for speeding up the eviction.
However, there have been claims of irregularities in following the procedure. Many families were not issued legal eviction notices.
The evacuations are taking place right in the middle of the school year and will cause problems for the children. When asked why the evictions were not carried out in May a senior official said, “The process had met roadblocks after the death of the former chief minister. Now that it has been taken up again, we don’t want to delay it any further.”
