CHENNAI: Communist Party of India (Marxist) State Secretary P Shanmugam announced a major public campaign demanding house pattas for urban residents and a rally in Chennai to hand over petitions to CM Stalin on December 16.

Shanmugam said that one-third of households in Chennai and its suburbs do not possess pattas despite residing there for decades.

Although the state government has repeatedly announced patta schemes, poor and working-class families are still forced to struggle for their land rights.

He added that rapid urbanisation has led to unused waterbodies being converted into residential complexes, with the government itself relocating people onto poramboke lands and providing them roads, drainage, drinking water, electricity and even collecting tax.

“Despite this, residents are labelled encroachers and denied pattas, citing government land, railway land or trust properties,” he said.