AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

        There is more confirmation to the increasing belief that Chennai is emerging as a costly city in India. According to the latest Consumer Price Index numbers for the month March 2007, Chennai is pegged at 585, and is significantly ahead of all the other three metros. Delhi is at 508, Mumbai at 490 and Kolkata 449. The numbers wouldn't surprise anyone who has been following the zooming price of real estate and housing in Chennai. In the last two years or so, Chennai's land prices have simply gone through the roof, so to say. This is understandable when you consider that among the metros, Chennai is deemed to be growing. But the pitiable part is that infrastructure development and quality of housing have not kept pace with the growth, and the buyers don't get value for their money in Chennai. World over, mainline cities are increasingly becoming costly places to live in. But the point is in those places infrastructure is not an issue. Most of them have been neatly worked out. In Chennai, however, this is not the case, and the city planners have been grossly lacking in vision and an ability to interpolate into present the possibilities of the future. In the event, housing is proving a major nightmare for the city's residents.

        Here too, like everywhere else, those straddling the middle ground are the worst hit. The poor get by in slums; the rich manage their problems with money. But the middleclass, the perennial sufferers, caught in a neither here nor there scenario, have nowhere to go. Most middleclass people come close to dropping out of the race, finding the obstacles too high to surmount. If the rising cost of land and house is bad enough, finding manageable sources to fund the same is a bigger worry. Housing loan rates are hardening by the day, and further, banks with their intransigence and ramrod rigid rules, are making it almost impossible for the salaried class to borrow. Middle income housing has long been discussed but almost never effectively implemented. For the average householder in search of shelter that he can call his own, however, there is no comfort in the current circumstances and little hope of improvement in the near future. Apart from infrastructure issues, the government would do well to break the 'cartelisation' in the real estate market. With big corporates armed with huge cash bags in the fray, the small and middle class buyers don't have a chance in the world. The big daddies out-buy the market and snuff out the dreams of the middleclass. Mini-townships and mega housing complexes, built by moneyed builders, also make matters worse. It can be nobody's case that these mega housing blocks should not be allowed to come up. But if the rules and reality all favour only the big fish, the small fries will soon be left low and dry.