The Hindu 27.07.2013
Karimadom flats: transit housing for 60 families
Lack of provisions for transit accommodation has been identified as one of the limitations of the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) programme.
At Karimadom Colony, this was one of the reasons that led to the delay in construction of housing units. Several slum-dwellers do not have any means to find a temporary accommodation till construction of the flats is over.
As a solution to this problem, the City Corporation is planning to convert the community hall here, by building an additional floor and placing partitions, to accommodate close to 60 families during the estimated nine-month period it may take for the completion of the third-phase work. Nine blocks will be built during this penultimate phase. Each block will have 20 apartment units, and accommodate 180 families.
A fixed schedule, including when the work will begin, when each floor will be completed and so on, will be charted out. At the housing project being carried out at Kalladimukham, this time-table system is being followed and the work is progressing relatively smoothly. Here the construction has been taken up on a vacant land and no one had to be displaced. COSTFORD is the construction agency.
Allotment of seven blocks constructed as part of Phase I and II at Karimadom was marred by court cases filed by certain residents claiming that they were the rightful inheritors. The BSUP wing along with the support of the Cluster Development Committee (CDC) here will identify the beneficiaries on a priority basis, giving preference to the chronically sick, the aged and widows. Once the legal proceedings concerning the other parties have been completed, they would then be accommodated in the new flats, officials said.
