CHENNAI: S Ramesh (name changed) bought a 2,400 sqft plot a year ago in TNHB’s Sholinganallur Phase III layout, survey number 235, after paying nearly Rs 1 crore for it.
SBI approved his housing loan, and since then, the 52-year-old central government employee has been paying an EMI of Rs 1.8 lakh a month.
The Greater Chennai Corporation is not issuing building permission as the plot falls within the 1-km zone of influence around the Pallikaranai Ramsar site.
I cannot even sell the land as buyers have disappeared, leaving me to service a massive loan for a property I cannot use,” he told TNIE.
The residents say several houses across the affected belt are now half-built, after banks withdrew from releasing loan instalments since approvals are uncertain.
CHENNAI: S Ramesh (name changed) bought a 2,400 sqft plot a year ago in TNHB’s Sholinganallur Phase III layout, survey number 235, after paying nearly Rs 1 crore for it. The layout has everything in place – roads, metrowater, stormwater drains. SBI approved his housing loan, and since then, the 52-year-old central government employee has been paying an EMI of Rs 1.8 lakh a month.
“Today, I am not able to build a house in the plot. The Greater Chennai Corporation is not issuing building permission as the plot falls within the 1-km zone of influence around the Pallikaranai Ramsar site. I cannot even sell the land as buyers have disappeared, leaving me to service a massive loan for a property I cannot use,” he told TNIE.
Ramesh is just one among the more than 1 lakh patta holders in Chennai’s southern suburbs hit by a planning freeze around the Pallikaranai Ramsar site, according to the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (CREDAI) - Chennai, which puts the economic impact at nearly Rs 71,500 crore.
The freeze traces back to an October 2025 order from the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), barring planning approvals within the Ramsar site’s boundary and the 1-km zone of influence around it, following directions from the southern bench of the NGT. The residents say several houses across the affected belt are now half-built, after banks withdrew from releasing loan instalments since approvals are uncertain.
