Urban News

The Hindu 28.01.2010

Houses for poor in the city, at last

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Identified beneficiaries for houses being constructed in the Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts can hope to get their dreams realised at last. Possession certificates are to be handed over to many of them living in select slums early next month.

At a recent coordination meeting by top officials of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) and district Collectors of Hyderabad and Rangareddy districts, it was decided beneficiaries lists be placed in website of A.P. State Housing Corporation Limited (APSHCL).

A road map to complete 44,000-odd houses in three phases was also hammered out at the meeting held in GHMC Commissioner Sameer Sharma’s chambers. About 16,922 houses are to be completed by March 31 including, infrastructure, 14,902 by July 31 with infrastructure and the remaining 12,551 by January 1, 2011 for which tenders are to be called with as many as 138 contractors ready to take up works on a nomination basis.

Identified beneficiaries living in Osmanshahi, Chudibazar, Chandrakiran basti, Shankar basti, Phoolbagh and Unnikota are to be handed over possession certificates in the next two months starting from February first week.

Alternative site

Hyderabad Collector was requested to provide alternative site to ground 32 houses at Annanagar in Khairatabad and for a housing colony behind Rail Nilayam.

Rangareddy Collector is to handover 28.50 acres at Kurmalguda and another 25 acres at Jawaharnagar within a fortnight to ground housing works under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). Beneficiaries’ contributions available with both Collectorates too are to be transferred to GHMC.

Documentation work

Staff of the Urban Community Department (UCD) wing of the Municipal Corporation is to be deployed for documentation work and also for loan tie-ups with the bankers for which a meeting is to be conducted shortly.

Pending houses construction under ‘Vambay’ to be expedited by exploring the possibility of obtaining Rs. 20,000 per house for the 27,379 houses transferred to the A.P. State Housing Board from the A.P Urban Finance and Infrastructure Development Corporation (APUFIDC) for completing them.

Hyderabad Collector Navin Mittal, Ranga Reddy Joint Collector Sudarshan Reddy, Additional Commissioner K. Dhanunjaya Reddy, Engineering-in-Chief P. Panduranga Rao and others attended. Mr. Mittal is to review the works progress every week and Mr. Sharma every month to sort out pending issues.

Indian Express 21.01.2010

GMADA clears allotment of 14 acres

Sector 76: Allotment price fixed at Rs 9,000 per square yard

With the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) clearing the allotment of 14 acres land in Sector 76 here for the District Administrative and Court Complex (DACC) in Mohali, a ray of hope has emerged which may finally give a push to the project.

The allotment was cleared by Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, who is also the GMADA chairman, on a case moved by the authority following a request from the Punjab Department of Revenue.

The development assumes significance as even almost four years after getting the status of a district, Mohali was continuing without the DACC, which is one of the basic requirements for any district headquarter.

In the absence of DACC, offices of the district civil and police administration were working temporarily from the old PSEB office building in Phase I here while the district judicial courts were working temporarily from a community centre in Phase 3B1.

The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum was housed in a rented accommodation in Phase II. Also, there was no residential accommodation available for officials of the district administration.

Confirming the development, GMADA Chief Administrator (CA) Vivek Partap Singh told Newsline that a formal letter to offer the land would soon be issued to the Punjab Department of Revenue, which was appointed as the nodal agency for procuring land, making payment and completing other formalities related to the allotment of land.

Though the present reserve allotment price in Mohali is Rs 12,000 per square yard but 25 per cent rebate has been offered on the land for DACC because it is a state project.

“We would wait for response from the Department of Revenue before handing over possession of the land,” said the GMADA CA, while hinting that in case the department expresses inability to pay the allotment price right away but requests for immediate possession of land, the case would be put up before the chief minister for approval.

Since the land is required for public purpose, the condition of advance payment mandatory for land allotment could be relaxed and the allottee department could be allowed to make the payment at a later stage as and when the adequate finance becomes available.

“On receipt of the land offer letter, the Department of Revenue would move the Finance department to allocate funds. GMADA would be requested to allot land against pending payment if funds are not readily available,” said a senior revenue official. GMADA has fixed Rs 9,000 per square yard as the allotment price.

Recently, Mohali Deputy Commissioner Prabhjot Singh Mand had taken up the matter with the CM to seek early allotment of land for DACC.

In a communiqué to Principal Secretary Darbara Singh Guru, the DC had requested for appointing a nodal department for seeking land allotment.

Earlier, the Revenue department had sought allotment of 6 acres for housing the civil and police wings of the district administration while the Department of Home and Justice had moved a separate requisition for allotment of 8 acres for constructing the judicial complex.

GMADA, however, rejected the separate requisitions and had sought constitution of a nodal agency to seek joint allotment of the entire chunk of 14 acres for construction of DACC.

The project has remained stalled ever since its foundation stone was laid in April 2006 by former CM Capt Amarinder Singh.