Residing under asbestos-roofed shelters in rehabilitation camps for over three decades, the Sri Lankan Tamils in Vellore, Ranipet, Tirupattur and Tiruvannamalai will move into concrete houses in nine months as work on their construction began a few days ago.
The initiative, being implemented by the District Rural Development Agency (DRDA), comes after Chief Minister M.K. Stalin inaugurated the free housing scheme for 19,046 Sri Lankan Tamils living in 106 relief camps at a function in Vellore in November 2021.
After a lot of paperwork in terms of identifying alternative sites and irreparable houses, the work has started with the demolition of the old shelters where Sri Lankan Tamils lived for years with meagre facilities. “It took nearly three years of fieldwork before launching the scheme. Now, the initiative will be executed in two phases, covering all beneficiaries,” R. Raja Rajeshwari, special tahsildar for rehabilitation camps (Tiruvannamalai), told The Hindu.
Together, these four districts have had a total of 2,239 families in 18 relief camps since 1990. Tiruvannamalai has the highest, having 12 camps housing 1,111 families. Vellore, Tirupattur and Ranipet have two camps each. Some major towns in the districts which have relief camps include Gudiyatham (55 families), Walajah (289 families), Sholinghur (160 families), Ambur (310 families), Cheyyar (112 families), Arani (94 families) and Chengam (111 families). Tiruvannamalai town, Vandavasi, Kalasapakkam and Polur also have had camps for decades.
Each house under the project will be 300 sq.ft. with a living room, a bedroom with an attached washroom and a kitchen. All these years, officials said, the relief camps only had a few common public toilets for the Sri Lankan Tamils. The new houses will also have free water connection and power supply. In addition, overhead tanks (OHTs) will also be built in the camps. Each house will cost ₹5.85 lakh for the State exchequer.
Officials said in the first phase, 933 houses would be built in these districts, with Tiruvannamalai having the highest at 255, followed by Tirupattur (236 houses), Ranipet (222 houses) and Vellore (220 houses). The remaining families would be covered in the second phase of the initiative.
Alongside the new houses, each camp will also get a community centre, a common children centre for reading and tuition purposes and a fair price shop. These facilities will be done by the respective block development offices (BDOs) with funds from the district administration.
