The Madras City Improvement Trust played a key role in building low-cost settlements

In June 1955, there was great excitement in Mambalam. A community hall, built by the Madras City Improvement Trust, had been inaugurated. The facility was generating considerable interest in the locality for the rent at which it came — Rs. 6 for a marriage and Rs. 3 for any other function.

However, the Trust’s biggest achievement lay not in building community halls, but in filling a huge gap in housing — it was providing homes for the low-income groups, especially for low-paid government employees such as peons and drivers.

Houses and plots were made available to the middle income groups too, but the Trust primarily focussed on providing affordable housing for the economically weak. The Trust, established in 1946 and financially supported by the Madras Corporation and the Government, built colonies, where individual units were rented out — in the 1950s, at rates ranging from Rs. 3 to Rs. 55 a month — or offered on a hire purchase system, to the economically weak.

Talking of colonies, do you know Nandanam derives its name from one of the colonies built by the Trust?

In March 1953, C. Rajagopalachari, the Chief Minister of Madras Presidency, was inaugurating a housing colony built by the Madras City Improvement Trust on Chamiers Road and he chose to give it the name of the running Tamil year — which was Nandanam (beautiful garden). He followed it up with a speech lauding the work of the Trust, which was developing the colony. He wanted it to create a colony every year and have it named after that Tamil year. In the following years, the Trust would more than fulfil his wish — by coming up with a slew of housing projects, surpassing expectations by a long chalk.

It would come up with a housing scheme for an area that had been declared a slum, under the Madras City Improvement Trust Act. For instance, in February 1947, the Government declared Cox Cheri in Chintadripet as a slum under the Act and the Trust entered the picture soon, with an improvement plan for the area.

The Trust has left an indelible imprint on many localities. One of them is Foreshore Estate. The area derives its name from ‘foreshore housing estate’ created by The Trust, when K. Kamaraj was Chief Minister of Madras State.

Five hundred units, spread across 25 blocks, were built in the Estate for government employees on low salaries. The houses were offered at a monthly rent of Rs. 33 for a unit on the ground floor and Rs. 31 for a unit on the first floor.

Going by the disparity in rents those days, they probably did not think much of a sea view.