Begin construction of houses for poor from October 25: CM Jagan

VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy directed housing officials to start construction of houses under ‘Pedalandiriki Illu’ scheme for the poor from October 25.

He held a high-level review meeting on housing schemes with ministers and senior officials at his camp office here on Monday.

Reddy said priority should be for beneficiaries who opted to take houses allotted to them by the state government. He asked the officials to ensure quality in electrical and construction material to those who wanted to construct houses on their own with the material supplied by the state government.

The officials said that the beneficiaries who opted for construction of their allotted houses were formed into groups and quality material is being provided towards which a software application has been developed.

The officials informed that by opting for reverse tendering in procurement of construction material, they had saved Rs 5,120 crore, which was Rs 32,000 for each. They said that they had completed works like mapping, registration, job cards issue and geo-tagging and added that works on construction of houses to the tune of 80 per cent were taken up in districts like Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Guntur. They also said that detailed project reports were prepared for developing basic amenities in the upcoming Jagananna Colonies.

Reddy also reviewed the progress of houses being taken up by AP Township and Infrastructure Development Corporation. Officials said that under phase-I, nearly 85,888 houses were under construction while development of basic amenities was in progress and assured to hand over such houses to the beneficiaries by December. They said that construction of houses under phase-II would be completed by next June and under Phase-III by next December.

The CM directed the officials to ensure allotment of flats in towns and cities to the middle-income group at reasonable cost. Officials said that there was a demand for 3.94 lakh houses coming up in 150, 200 and 250 square yards and said that they were on the job of identifying lands and acquiring them. Reddy asked for an action plan on such flats by Dasara.

Minister for municipal administration Botsa Satyanarayana informed that out of nine cities which had ‘water plus certification’ in the country, there were three cities from AP. Reddy directed officials to send guidelines to all municipalities on supply of drinking water and maintenance of drains so that the urban centres in the state could also get such a certification.