Above 2 years after
the government handed over the keys of nearly 8,000 low cost houses developed
under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) housing
scheme to the beneficiaries, a staggering 40% of the houses are still lying
unoccupied, reports TOI.
This is even as
nearly 20% of the houses have been put on rent or / sold off by the beneficiaries while the
remaining 40% are occupied by persons that the government officials are yet to
identify. These are the findings of a recent sample survey carried out by the
Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation (GVMC)'s department of urban
community development (UCD) on the 7,964 houses handed over to beneficiaries.
The GVMC is planning
to take up a comprehensive survey soon to identify the occupants of the
remaining 40% houses to find out if they are genuine or / bogus beneficiaries.
"The sample
survey revealed that most of the houses were not occupied by the people who
were handed over the keys. We have decided to conduct a comprehensive survey by
visiting the houses during morning hours to check the occupants & if they
are genuine beneficiaries. We will also serve legal notices to the bogus
occupants on the spot itself. However, all this will take two to three
months," UCD Project Director, Mr. MNA Patrudu.
According to GVMC
officials, the government had sanctioned 15,320 homes under JNNURM to GVMC
since 2009. However, GVMC decided to construct only 14,267 houses and said it
would not build the remaining 1.053 houses primarily due to land problems.
And so far, GVMC has
been able to complete the construction of only 7,964 houses in 43 layouts and
has handed over the keys to the beneficiaries since mid 2011. Another 4,757
houses are under various stages of construction.
The cost of each
housing unit ranges from Rs. 1.65 lakh to Rs 1.81 lakh, depending on the size
of the home. The beneficiaries of JNNURM low cost housing project are selected
based on three criteria: urban poor, rehabilitation and relocation.
However, it was
learnt that the reason for most beneficiaries shying away from occupying the
houses was the lack of basic infrastructure such as water, power, drainage,
streetlights and even recreation facilities.
According to Mr.
Pragada Srinivasu, Co - ordinator, Association for Regional Tribal Development
for Urban Wing (ARTDUW), most of the houses were not occupied by the
beneficiaries due to various reasons such as lack of basic amenities, the fact
that the housing sites are very far from city and lack of proper transportation
facilities close to the housing project.
One of the
beneficiaries of the JNNURM housing project at Lankepalem, Mr. P. Sannasamma,
who also lodged a complaint with GVMC officials about lack of power and water
connections in her house, said: "The GVMC commissioner assured me that it
will take a month to put in place the power supply. My family had to suffer a
lot of problems last summer due to lack of power and water."
Admitting that the civic
body was flooded with complaints from JNNURM housing beneficiaries on the lack
of basic amenities at the weekly grievance cell, GVMC commissioner MV
Satyanarayana claimed that they had provided all basic amenities like as power,
tap water, streetlights to the allotted houses at the time of handing over the
keys to beneficiaries but many of these were damaged due to non-occupation of
houses.
"Nearly items
such as streetlights, water taps and the like worth Rs. 10 lakh were stolen
from housing sites that are not yet occupied. We plan to restore the facilities
at all allotted houses within two months," he said.
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