Greater Chennai Corporation starts tracing revenue records of 6,000 land parcels in city to prevent encroachments

The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has started work on tracing land records to secure 6,000 parcels of land that belong to the civic body. The lands include Open Space Reservation (OSR) lands, playgrounds, parks, and spaces where public buildings have already been built. Some lands that have been encroached upon will also be identified in the drive.

Once the records are traced, the data will be digitised and made available publicly on the civic body’s online portal. Officials in each of the 15 zones, with support from the Revenue Department, will ensure that the boundaries of these lands are marked correctly.

Many land records belonging to the erstwhile local bodies have not been maintained properly and were not handed over to the GCC after the merger. Particularly, during the merger of a large number of villages on the outskirts of Chennai in 2011, many land records were reportedly lost. The Land and Estates Department of the GCC has checked the revenue records of 1,500 properties with support from the Revenue Department. The verification of 6,000 properties will be completed this month.

Residents’ associations in many areas have demanded the civic body to check the layout approved by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) and the data from the Registration Department to protect OSR lands for development of parks and playgrounds. In the past few years, buildings have been constructed on OSR lands, claiming that they were for public purposes.

At the last council meeting, GCC councillors demanded the construction of public buildings on OSR lands. But officials rejected the demand, pointing to the need to keep such lands open to provide safety for residents during a disaster. In the past few years, whenever the State government required a land parcel of OSR including parks, the GCC council has approved the resolution, for implementation of major infrastructure projects such as Metro Rail.

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