The constructing stands on Avvai Shanmugam/V.P. Raman Salai/Lloyd Street (solely in Chennai can we’ve three names for a single highway), simply bordering on Gopalapuram. The unique, and from what I could make of it, good-looking edifice, has since been marred by senseless extensions each horizontally and vertically. And in a single nook is a painted and fast-fading signal that claims Gopalapuram Co-Operative Housing Society Restricted. Standing by its aspect, I couldn’t assist reflecting on how this constructing might maintain inside it the story of the event of not only one, however as many as 5 housing developments within the metropolis.

The Co-Operative Credit score Societies Invoice was handed by the Authorities of India in March 1904 and Madras was, because it usually was, first off the mark. The Triplicane City Co-Operative Society, TUCS, was the nation’s first such physique. A decade later, the opportunity of such societies for inexpensive housing was realised and the Madras Provincial Co-Operative Union was fashioned in 1914. Nonetheless, a real fillip in housing societies occurred solely with the founding of the Madras Metropolis Co-Operative Constructing Society in 1923, in Triplicane. It shortly thereafter modified its identify to Madras Authorities Servants Co-Operative Constructing Society.

The primary challenge of the society was Gopalapuram, as has been documented earlier in this column. That was on 114 grounds on Lloyd’s Street, between Mount Street and Mowbray’s Street and as soon as belonging to Nawab Sir Syed Muhammad, a senior Congress chief after whose passing the property vested with the Official Assignee of the Excessive Courtroom of Madras.

Gopalapuram was named after Sir N. Gopalaswami Iyengar, then of the Madras Civil Service and later to develop into Dewan of Kashmir and impartial India’s first railway minister. He was the main mild of the co-operative society that developed the colony.

In 1937-38, the society bought round 38 grounds in what was generally known as Singarathoppu off Lloyds Street in Royapettah to develop Lakshmipuram. Six grounds have been reserved for roads and different utilities, whereas the remaining was allotted to 16 members for constructing homes. A bit of land was retained for frequent function of the colonists. The society laid out the roads and handed them over to the company. This space turned recognized for the Lakshmipuram Younger Males’s Affiliation, which for lengthy held the fame of being an mental physique that each chief within the State aspired to be invited to deal with.

A number of years later, the society purchased round 200 grounds on the southern finish of Mowbrays Street belonging to the Official Trustee of Madras. A triangular piece of land belonging to the Bishop of Madras adjoining to this website was additionally bought. The complete block was parcelled into 42 plots and thus, was fashioned Sriramnagar, which nonetheless stays a really good-looking locality, with broad roads. In 1943-44, the society bought round 50 grounds close to Norton Lane in Mandaveli from a C. Sambanda Mudaliar and developed a structure comprising round 25 plots. The company laid the roads, the price of which was met by the society. In 1953, the Financial institution bought round 60 grounds in Guindy for a sum of ₹20,000 for the event of the Ganapathy Nagar colony.

A while after this, the society appears to have misplaced steam. It transformed itself right into a mortgage financial institution to allow the members to pledge their properties and search loans for numerous functions different than simply home constructing. In 1945, the financial institution was taken over by the South Indian Co-Operative Insurance coverage Society. It appears to have light away by the Nineteen Fifties, its good work achieved.