The Hindu Business Line : TNHB fortunes on the rebound

TIMELY intervention at restructuring the Tamil Nadu Housing Board's (TNHB) policies and standardisation of procedures appears to have gone a long way in reversing the board's fortunes.

The measures initiated in the last one year has, according to TNHB sources, have enhanced the image of the board, which, they concede, had in recent years slipped to its lowest ebb.

Despite the infrastructure that the board had managed to create in different parts of the State over the years, a number of schemes had turned out to be dead assets as they remained unsold. The board took a conscious decision to put on hold further construction until the stock on hand of developed plots and houses/flats was disposed of and the dues realised.

Strategies to strengthen disposal of accumulated stocks were chalked. The sale proceeds helped improve the board's finances.

A top official of the board, who preferred anonymity, said the board was able to realise Rs 53 crore during the first six months of the current fiscal, and, yet, there remained 26,174 plots and 5,483 flats/houses unsold. The entire accumulated holding has been valued at Rs 499 crore.

Besides this, about 2,300 sites reserved in the various developed schemes kept unutilised have been identified and the cost of these has been fixed (on the market rate) at Rs 680 crore. Board sources said these sites were now being auctioned and the amount realised from the sale of 156 sites was Rs 15.5 crore.

The board has sought the Government's approval for implementing the new land use policy to initiate action on the unutilised lands without encumbrance and the lands involved in litigation.

On restructuring, he said the board had down sized the number of divisions to 15 from 26. The staff, however, was relocated, not retrenched.

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