Saturday, November 14, 2009

BLB Estates Jeeva Nagar Approved Layout Now on CMDA website

The approved layout of Jeeva Nagar, bearing number PPD LO 134/2003 is now available officially on the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority website. It can be downloaded as a PDF here.

The approved layout clearly displays two roads connecting the layout - A 12.0 metre road connecting Kattupakkam and a 9 metre road connecting Badrimedu, where there is an existing 7.2 metre road as per the plan.

A quick study of the approved plan (download it here) shows that BLB Estates, the developer of the layout is required to remove two sections of the compound wall in the Southern side. This was not done during the entire period of five years that BLB Estates said it would maintain the layout. It has thus flouted the approved plan condition.

As we have pointed out earlier, BLB Estates has also concealed the material fact that a lot of the top-soil was removed in the layout by commercial interests, and it was sold without any remediation by the developer. The CMDA has also ignored this condition.

This is to caution all those transacting in property developed by BLB Estates, that they do so at their own risk. They may have to invest extra funds to remedy environmental damage caused to layouts promoted by this company.

If BLB Estates wants to salvage its reputation, it should come forward to repair all roads to a height of 5 feet from the existing level. This will stop the recurrent flooding in the approved layout.

The Mangadu Town Panchayat under Kancheepuram District has also acted with extreme irresponsibility by not insisting on fulfilment of the approval conditions of the CMDA.

It was even more negligent in wasting Rs. five lakhs of the Government of Tamil Nadu funds under the Anaithu Grama Anna Marumalarchi Thittam (AGAMT) supervised by an officer of high integrity, the Rural Development Secretary, Mr K Ashok Vardhan Shetty, IAS.

We urge Mr. Shetty to order an inspection of the layout to see whether the Panchayat has frittered away precious funds by building a partial black-topped road that goes underwater every time it rains, by ignoring the fact that this layout has been stripped of several feet of topsoil. Did the taxpayer have to spend Rs. five lakhs for this?