No dearth of funds for housing: Special CS Ajay Jain

Ongole: The special chief secretary for housing, village and ward secretariats Ajay Jain said that there is no funds crunch for the construction of houses under the 'Navaratnalu- Pedalandariki Illu' programme and the bills to the beneficiaries would be released on a weekly basis.

The special CS inspected the Jagananna colony layouts and progress of beneficiary-led construction of houses at Velamuripadu of Addanki mandal and Martur in Prakasam district along with the collector Pravin Kumar and other officials on Thursday.

He also conducted a review with the officials on the status of housing and construction of village and ward secretariat buildings at the collectorate in Ongole.

Ajay Jain appreciated the services of secretariat staff in the district and said that 582 of the secretariats in Prakasam are performing better. He said that though the government allotted 96,000 housing plots to the district, about 16,000 houses in Ongole and some in other places are still pending.

He said that they had completed geo-tagging for 71,231 houses out of the total 78,000 houses sanctioned to the district, and advised the officials to see all houses are getting completed within six months. He presented appreciation certificates to officers and staff from Ongole town, Singarayakonda, Chinaganjam, Chirala, Parchuru and Jarugumalli for performing better in OTS scheme implementation.

Speaking at the press meet, Ajay Jain explained that the government had purchased 65,000 acre land at a cost of Rs 16,000 crore to provide housing plots to 35 lakh poor people in the state. He said that the government had sanctioned 10.85 lakh plots to the beneficiaries and released Rs 28,000 crore for the construction of houses.

He said that due to court cases, the construction was interrupted but as the court had dismissed them recently the building of houses would continue. He informed that the government will sanction Rs 1.85 lakh to each beneficiary for construction of the house, and released Rs 1,100 crore as many houses are pending construction and dues of Rs 870 crore to the beneficiaries is to be paid. He said that the government is developing 17,000 layouts with Rs 34,000 crore and providing roads, electricity, drinking water and other basic amenities.

Ajay Jain announced that the housing department has about Rs 300 crore to pay the beneficiaries constructing houses directly on a weekly basis. He explained that the government is waiving about Rs 10,000 crore worth of loans of beneficiaries who constructed houses before 2011. He said that there are about 8.50 lakh beneficiaries who constructed houses by taking and without taking loans under housing, and they would be provided registered documents to the houses. He advised others also to utilise the OTS scheme to get complete rights on their houses, as the government extended the deadline for the scheme up to Ugadi.

Joint collectors T S Chetan, K S Viswanathan, sub-collector Aparajita Singh, housing project director Sainath Kumar, ZP CEO B Jalireddy and others also participated in the programme.