Chennai: For residents of around nine streets situated near Mambalam High Road, starting from Kodambakkam Railway Station, the notices received from Land Acquisition Offices of Chennai Revenue Division, for acquiring their lands, has come as a rude shock.
The move is to acquire lands to pave way for the proposed Metro Rail project extending the services from Kodambakkam to Nandanam through Panagal Park, Dr Natesan Park.
Raising the issue with this paper, Pasupathy Iyer, a resident of Vivekanandapuram Street, said, “We were given to understand that the stretch between Vadapalani to Nandanam will be under-ground and as per the drawings available, nine streets are getting affected besides two temples and an equal number of public toilets.”
“All residents, who are living here for over 50 years or so, fall under the middle and lower middle class sections and they are now in severe mental stress on receiving the notices. It is understood that Chennai Metro has several times changed the routing from Vadapalani to Panagal Park, and as per the latest proposal, our area has been targeted.”
“This locality is already a congested one with various educational institutions, shopping centres and hospitals. The distance to be covered for the said stretch is quite less and the authorities will end up only in a revenue loss if they go ahead with the proposal.”
“Also, since transport facilities are available both on road and rail here, we residents strongly protest the unilateral decision to acquire their residential lands where they are living for more than three/ four generations,” he pointed out.
The locals also said that there is a vacant place available on the Western side of Kodambakkam Suburban Railway Station and also on the Northern side of Mambalam Railway Station, and that CMRL could have opted either of the above without disturbing residential places.
They have also sent an appeal to the Prime Minister seeking his intervention, it is learnt.