State Planning Commission for restructuring T.N. land use board

Modern methods for mapping and planning are to be implemented

The State Planning Commission will be restructuring the Tamil Nadu State Land Use Board, tightening norms for disbursing funds under Tamil Nadu Innovative Initiatives (TANII) and preparing policy documents in new and emerging sectors.

“The Tamil Nadu State Land Use Board will be restructured. Earlier, people have been using this board only for research. They gave a topic to the empaneled organisations and collected details. But there was no big outcome there,” J. Jeyaranjan, vice-chairman of State Planning Commission (SPC), said. He pointed out that there was no proper plan on land use at the State level and modern methods for mapping and planning were not being implemented.

“We are working on bringing in the most sophisticated technology to map – like remote sensing, drone mapping etc. We want to make sure that identifying land becomes easy. We are also in talks with several agencies and many of them are very keen to fund us. World Bank is giving lot of money to the government of Tamil Nadu and of that a small portion would be allocated for this,” he added.

TANII was originally meant for government departments and government-aided institutions for fostering innovation. “But earlier funds were being disbursed to anyone who came and asked for. Whenever there was no money in a particular department they came here and took it. After we came in, we have done some restructuring work and are giving money for real innovations that will help in better governance and service delivery,” Mr. Jeyaranjan said.

After sanctioning the funds, the projects would be closely monitored and the impact studied. The State innovation fund is a non-lapsable fund.

A review on the backward grant fund had shown that substantially the fund was going into buildings. “But now we have prioritised health and education. We have identified some districts for this,” he added.

On the policy front, the State Planning Commission is working with various departments and preparing policy documents such as an EV policy (updated 4.0 version), solid waste management policy, tourism policy, MSME policy, textile policy, housing policy among others. The State will also soon come out a transgender policy and a LGBTQ+ policy and talks are on with the Social Welfare Department regarding this. “We have had elaborate discussions with each of the departments. It’s all ready. The Chief Minister will see and review all these policies soon. We have also done a sustainable land use policy and a water resource policy. There are many new sectors that are emerging and we need to create policies for all that,” Mr. Jeyaranjan said.