Even as construction of houses under Integrated Slum House
Development Project (ISHDP) is going on in the city, Berhampur Municipal
Corporation (BMC) has taken up a project to construct 6,000 houses
under Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) for the slum dwellers.

According to
BMC records, there are 137 slums in the city and around 39 per cent of
the city’s population lives in these slums. Most of them live in
informal settlements with no legal rights. Basic amenities like drinking
water, sanitation, electricity, roads and livelihood options are still a
dream for these slum-dwellers.

The ISHDP was approved in 2009 and
in the first phase, `12.8 crore was released. However, no decision has
been taken on the rest houses of the project. The BMC implemented IHSDP
in the city with Central assistance of ` 25.60 crore in two phases in
2009. As many as 1,202 beneficiary families from 24 slums in 19 wards
have been selected for provision of houses under this scheme.

Work order was released for 984 houses of which 452 have been completed while 267 houses are in final stage of completion.

Aseem
Mishra, Municipal Engineer of BMC said each house is estimated to cost `
1.40 lakh. The beneficiary will pay ` 14,000 while the Central and the
State Governments will pay ` 80,000 and ` 10,000 respectively with BMC’s
share being `36,000. Work order for the construction of houses were
given to interested beneficiaries and those who denied, it was entrusted
to the contractors.

The sources said Since the ISHDP proved
inadequate to accommodate all the slum dwellers, the BMC urged the
Central Government to sanction funds under the RAY. Later, the Centre
directed the BMC to prepare a detailed project report.

BMC has
entrusted a Bhubaneswar-based private agency OP & HC to survey the
slum areas and identify land to construct houses for the project. The
agency in its report suggested to construct 6,000 houses for the slum
dwellers at 12 places in the city at an cost of around ` 300 crore.

A
team of OP & HC came to the city to gather information on
requirement of infrastructure recently. The team identified four places
for first phase of the project.