Tamil Nadu witnessed one of the worst Cyclones, ‘Thane’ in the month of December, 2011.  The ‘Thane’ cyclone has been classified as a ‘very severe cyclonic storm’, which had damaged lakhs of houses and left lakhs of families without livelihood. The Government of Tamil Nadu, on the instruction of Hon’ble Chief Minister, acted swiftly and ordered for a wide range of immediate restoration measures on a large scale. As per the orders of the Government, the Department acted in unison and completed the immediate relief works in record time. The worst affected segments have been the most vulnerable section, the poorest of poor, the landless labourers, the fishermen and the small and marginal farmers.  An immediate assistance was given to restore the damaged huts and houses on a temporary basis. However, rebuilding of houses and shelters will take a long time for the affected families whereas they are placing their entire efforts for the restoration of livelihood resources. Therefore, the affected people are not in a position to rebuild their shelters at this stage.

        Hence, the Government in the Governor’s address in Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly on 03.04.2012 had announced that “This Government will launch a ‘Thane Housing Scheme’ for the benefit of the people affected by the most severe cyclonic storm in the rural areas. The Government would construct 1 lakh concrete houses at a cost of Rs. 1,000 crore to replace damaged houses in the Thane Cyclone affected Districts of Cuddalore and Villupuram. Accordingly, the Government issued orders sanctioning 1 lakh houses at a cost of Rs.1000 crore to replace damaged houses in The Thane cyclone affected districts of cuddalore (90,000 houses ) and villupuram (10,000 houses ) at unit cost of Rs.1 lakh per house vide G.O.Ms.No.79,  Rural Development & Panchyat Raj (SGS-II) Department,  dated  27.08.2012 .

Salient features of the Scheme

• Rural families which have been affected by THANE cyclone will be automatically eligible.
• Each house will have an area of 200 square feet.
• Every house will have a living room, kitchen and toilet including provision for Rain Water Harvesting structure.  The toilet component would be provided separately under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) funds.
• The unit cost will be Rs.1.00 lakh per house and fully funded by the State Government.
• Construction of houses will be done by the beneficiaries themselves.
• Houses will be constructed either in situ (replacing his/her existing dwelling structure) or in the land owned by the beneficiary elsewhere in the Village Panchayat.  No land acquisition is envisaged under this Scheme.
• Country bricks, Fly ash bricks and Hollow block bricks can be used for construction as desired by the beneficiaries based on Public Works Department approved data.

         Government vide G.O (Ms) No.21, RD & PR (SGS-2) Department, dated 08.02.2016, have issued orders reallocating 10000 houses allotted to cuddalore district as 6666 houses to Town Panchayat and 1666 houses to Municipalities in Cuddalore district at an unit cost of Rs.1.20 lakhs and decided to release the funds directly to the Director of Town Panchayats and Commissioner of Municipal Administration and Monitoring works are to be done by the concerned departments.