Building demolition halted

The Kancheepuram district administration, which began demolishing buildings on a piece of land classified as `tank poromboke' land in Chromepet on Monday, stopped the drive on Tuesday following protests. Revenue officials came to Kulakkarai Street, Lakshmipuram near Chromepet on Tuesday morning along with policemen to continue with the demolition. However, the work, after the demolition of a compound wall, had to be stopped following protests from occupants of the building and from elected representatives. Located near Chromepet, the area falls under the jurisdiction of Tiruneermalai Town Panchayat. According to the officials, they were acting on orders of the Madras High Court following a petition from V. Vedachalam, hereditary trustee of Arulmighu Mukkalathamman Temple. According to Mr. Vedachalam, a couple of buildings had come up on `tank poromboke' land situated next to the temple. They had appealed to the Kancheepuram Collector as early as in 2002 to demolish them, and though Revenue Officials of Tambaram Taluk were instructed to inspect the site and remove the encroachments, it was not done. The two buildings in the land are the Thanthai Periyar Library and a Sanmarga Sangam being run by the Senior Citizens Welfare Association. Members of the association said the Sangam was run purely on a voluntary basis providing free tuitions and food to school students of poor families for more than 25 years. No donation was collected and expenses were managed with contributions of the association's members alone. Members of the Thanthai Periyar Arignar Anna Welfare Association, running the library, said the building served as a reading centre for poor students. Alandur MLA and Labour Welfare Minister T.M. Anbarasan inaugurated the building in November 2006. Members of the two associations said it would be unfair to demolish buildings that were performing a useful job. They said the Tiruneermalai Town Panchayat had given its consent to hand over the land to the two associations. However temple devotees said no local body had the powers to allot to others land that were classified as `poromboke' in revenue records. Officials said they had stopped the demolition drive for the time being and would wait for orders from their higher-ups.