Vijayawada: Indecisiveness of the Ministry of Municipal Administration and Urban Development (MA&UD) and frequent interventions into the functioning of the AP Town Planning and Infrastructure Development Corporation (APTPIDC) have been raising doubts over the completion of the construction of 10 lakh houses under NTR urban housing scheme in the state.
Despite the fact that three years of the mandate period is already over, somehow the government mechanism is not moving forward, to execute the tender process.
In the leftover two years, the CM wants all the 10 lakh houses to be built and handed over to beneficiaries, which seems to be far from possible. The state government has identified lacunae in taking forward the urban housing scheme further.
Top bosses of the Ministry of Housing pointed out that former secretary (housing) Luv Agarwal and his team’s alleged disinclination towards operating the scheme in the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) mode had delayed the process for a long time.
After the completion of two and half years, now the ministry is getting ready to rectify mistakes.
Few key officials in housing are not keen on the EPC mode, as in this procedure, the houses will be handed over directly to the government in a single stretch, wherein the scope for frequent kickbacks or commissions will be almost zero.
Following the failure of housing bureaucrats in addressing the issue of urban housing for homeless, the Chief Minister himself had contemplated to set up the AP Town Planning and Infrastructure Develop-ment Corporation (APTPIDC), for which the CM is chairman and technocrat Ramnath Velamati is vice-chairman.
The APTPIDC, which was formed in August last year, has recently completed the exercise of preparing action plan, backend procedures, policies and guidelines, for the urban housing. The scheme will function with the subsidies being provided by the Union and state governments.
The EPC is a popular model being adopted globally in many projects like road construction, and roof-top solar projects.
In Ketakanonda, near Ibrahimpatnam, a model sophisticated housing has been developed with pre-fabricated and pipe-lined concrete slabs, which are termite free, rust free and water proof.
In the later stages, the housing authorities conveniently ignored the follow-up process.
“Around Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 6.5 lakh per double bedroom construction within an extent of 300 sft to 450 sft was estimated then,” a housing official said, and expressed doubt as to how the APTPIDC would garner the financial support for more than two lakh houses estimated under urban housing.
