CHENNAI, Tamil Nadu: S Nagarajan, Commissionerate of Land Administration, Government of Tamil Nadu, has directed all the local authorities in the state to conduct a special drive to update the land records and to mark out the Open Space Reservation (OSR) lands in Municipal Corporation, Municipalities, Gram Panchayats and Town Panchayats.
The move is in line with the observation from the Director of Municipal Administration who said that records of many of the OSR lands could not be traced. Rule 47(6) of the Tamil Nadu Combined Development and Building Rules states that name of any of the gifted land or open spaces should be changed in favour of the concerned local body. But many of the lands were still registered in the name of the private owners and many of these owners could not be traced.
The Directorate of Municipal Administration told the Commissionerate of Land Administration, “the local bodies’ name is not reflected in the land records. The urban local bodies are facing problems in maintaining the gifted land and are not able to legally guard the lands from litigations and encroachments.”
As per government data, there are around 1,000 OSR sites in the urban areas which fall under the jurisdiction of 20 Municipal Corporations. There are 328 OSR sites in the area of Erode Municipal Corporation. Out of these 328 sites, 130 have an area of more than 300 square metre, while 198 have less than 300 square metre.
While there are around 275 OSR sites in the area of Coimbatore Municipal Corporation, out of which 150 have an area of more than 300 square metres, and 125 have less than 300 square metres. Madurai (114 sites), Tirunelveli (89 sites) and Tiruchi (29 sites) are some of the other municipal corporations that have OSR sites in their area of jurisdiction. There was no data regarding sites under some of the corporations, including Greater Chennai Corporation, Kancheepuram, and Dindigul Municipal Corporation.
A senior official informed The Hindu that data regarding the town and village panchayats will be collected during the drive and the available provisional figure with the departments will be updated as well. Following the updation process, the concerned local body will become the owner of OSR lands.
The directive regarding the conduct of the special drive has been forwarded to the Municipal Administration and Water Supply, Department of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Commissioner of Greater Chennai Corporation, Commissioner of Rural Development, Commissioner of Town Panchayat, Director of Survey and Settlement and Director of Municipal Administration.