The relocation project for the slum dwellers of Rangamatia got a head start with the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) signing an MoU with the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) here on Monday.

As per the proposal, 600 housing units will be constructed for the slum dwellers in Gadakan mouza. The General Administration (GA) department has handed over five acres of land for the project taken up under the Ministry of Urban Development’s scheme Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY).

Slum dwellers mostly from Munda Sahi in Mancheswar, Patra Sahi and Dasaraj Basti will be rehabilitated under the project.

BMC Commissioner Sanjib Mishra said the Rangamatia rehabilitation project is the first project in the country to become operational under RAY.

For the project, G+4 (ground floor and four floors) model apartments will be constructed. The housing units will have basic amenities like sewerage, drainage, electrification, roads and water supply.

The cost of the project is about ` 54 crore which will be shared by the Central Government (50 per cent), State Government (30 per cent) and the beneficiary (20 per cent).

BMC project officer (RAY) Srimanta Mishra said the beneficiaries share will be between ` 80,000 and ` one lakh. BMC has already begun peripheral work on the project which is expected to be completed in two years.

Some of the slum dwellers, who have received patta from the Government, initially resisted to be relocated to apartments. They did not want to give up independent piece of land for an apartment based housing. Since location of rehabilitation is within 1.5 kms of their original houses, it will be an advantage for the slum dwellers.

BMC Mayor AN Jena said they have decided to clamp down on the increasing number of slums in the city. “We will not allow any more slum to come up,” Jena said.

Presently, there are more than 300 slums that have been identified by the BMC. Every year, the number of slums has been steadily rising and rehabilitating them has become a problem for the corporation.