The Hindu 31.08.2009
JNNURM housing units ready
G.V.R. Subba Rao
| Handing them over to beneficiaries may be delayed due to poll code |
JNNURM houses ready for occupation at Vambay Colony in Vijayawada.
VIJAYAWADA: The Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) is all set to hand over more than 2,500 houses to the selected beneficiaries very soon. The houses are “ready in all aspects,” except electrification, according to officials.
These houses are spread over different blocks at Vambay Colony, Payakapuram, Machavaram and Disney Land. The corporation has completed 42 blocks with 1,340 units (houses) at Vambay Colony, 11 blocks with 352 units at Payakapuram, 14 blocks with 448 units at Machavaram and 12 blocks with 384 units near Disney Land.
By-election
However, the formal handing over of the houses to beneficiaries might be put on hold temporarily in view of the by-election to the 44th division on September 16. Until the election is over, the VMC will not be able to organise any official programme in view of the election code.
The corporation had short-listed the beneficiaries by giving priority to those displaced from areas like Padmavathi Ghat and the Krishna riverbed. The Urban Community Development (UCD) wing of the corporation has taken up the documentation work, and is likely to complete it shortly. The beneficiaries would have to pay Rs. 10,000 as their contribution for allotment of a dwelling unit.
Target
These houses apart, the corporation has set a target of completing as many as 37 blocks with 1,184 units at Rajarajeswaripeta by November-end this year. And another set of 3,000 houses at Jakkampudi, where the VMC has taken up construction of a total of 8,608 units in 32 blocks, would be ready by December-end this year. The remaining units are expected to be completed by 2010, officials say.
All the houses are being constructed under Basic Services for Urban Poor (BSUP), a sub-mission under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
The Union Government, in all, sanctioned 21,752 houses for Vijayawada under BSUP. Of these, 14,968 houses were proposed to be taken up in Phase-I and 6,784 in Phase-II. The State government pegged the unit cost of the houses taken up in Phase-I at Rs.1.32 lakhs and those of Phase-II at Rs.1.40 lakhs.
