The city Corporation is all set to take up the redevelopment of the Rajaji Nagar colony (Chenkalchoola), as part of its Smart City project.
For the civic body, this is going to be a challenging project because a plan by the previous UDF government had failed to take off due to local opposition.
But, it seems to have addressed the issues in creating a master plan by which the whole area would be used only for providing houses and other amenities to the residents, and not to divert parts of the land for other purposes. In addition to providing flats, the project envisages to use the rest of the space for a community hall, a primary health centre, a playground, and other facilities for the residents here.
Each of the flat block will either be three or four floors high, with each unit being 503 square feet in area, having two bedrooms, one hall, one kitchen, and two toilets. The master plan is proposed to be implemented in four stages, with houses being demolished at each stage and flats constructed in their place.
Meeting
In a meeting of various political party representatives and some residents chaired by the Mayor on Saturday, one of the concerns raised was on having a proper facility near the area for temporary rehabilitation until the flats are completed. Another demand was for selection of beneficiaries in advance in a transparent manner to avoid controversies during allocation.
The Corporation has already carried out a survey of all the houses in the area and the number of families in each house, and even geo-tagged the houses. More than 900 families reside in the colony. Some of the residents have already been included in the list of beneficiaries for the State government's Livelihood, Inclusion, Financial Empowerment (LIFE) housing scheme, while some others already own houses outside the colony. Such applicants will be eliminated. A total of ₹212 crore has been allocated for the project.
In 2016, the then UDF government’s plan was to use 5.26 acres of the total of 11.2 acres of land at Rajaji Nagar to construct flats for all the families and use the rest to build a commercial complex.
Residents went up in arms against the project, refusing to cede an inch of land for commercial purposes, forcing the government to abandon the project.
