Chennai: The government’s anti-encroachment drive near Velacheri MRTS went on smoothly. But, after the buildings were demolished, stories of people who ran their livelihood here have surfaced.
“One glance at the debris, one might think it is a removal of encroachments on the railway property, but there is more to it than what meets the eye,” says Murugesan who had purchased the land with a patta in 2012 and has also been paying property tax since.
He claimed that the government passed order in GO MS NO 862 dated 7 August 1992, where a group of people were allotted one cent of land each in the survey No 333, and the pattas were issued by the Tahsildar. It is also further reported that the government had acquired the land GO MS No 15 and handed it over to Railway for phase two MRTS development in 2003. In 2004, the High Court gave an interim order to the occupants to vacate the property. For the next 15 years, the case was kept in ‘cold storage,’ during which the property was sold to third parties and more buildings mushroomed.
“We are not saying the encroachment drive was unfair, but the State government should have compensated us when they donated the land to the railways. I did not know about the GO cancellation or that the land was allotted to the Railways or even about the case when I purchased it in 2012,” says Murugesan.
Another victim, Megashyam says, “At the time of buying, we were not aware that the patta has been cancelled and a case was pending. We were told that the patta was active. The property had water supply, electricity connection and they were even laying drainage pipes. We felt that since the government was providing the facilities, there won’t be any issue.”
The party who sold the land to Megashyam said that a new patta would be issued in a few months’ time in the new owner’s name. “Only recently, we came to know about the series of events involving the case and High Court judgement. We are puzzled at how the EB and Municipality did not inform us about the cancelled patta while paying our bills. But what pains us the most is that the media painted us as land grabbers and that the buildings were illegal,” he says.
For those who lost their livelihood, the following questions are lingering in their minds: How did the government allow people to raise such huge buildings? Why was the case extended for 15 years? Why were electricity and drainage facility given for an encroached land? Why the Corporation had collected property tax? Why has the government not given any compensation for cancelling an allotted land?