1.2 lakh houses for urban poor by June 2018: Narayana

Tirupati: Government of Andhra Pradesh is to construct 1.2 lakh high quality houses for urban poor in all municipalities soon, said Minister for Municipal and Urban development P Narayana.

He participated as a chief guest at a district level-4 phase Janmabhoomi valedictory function in Tirupati, on Wednesday. The Minister stated that the CM is determined to take up this new massive housing scheme for urban poor.

He added as part of this scheme, high end materials for new house construction like tiles, wooden windows etc would be utilised. It was also proposed to provide hospital, school, shopping complex etc in the housing area.

The Minister affirmed that this is a priority in urban housing schemes other than the existing housing schemes. He also said that tenders will be finalised in a month for costs up to Rs 1800 per SFT.

He added that this is the first scheme of the government when it is proposing to pay a higher price for urban poor housing. Even though the State government has deficit budget up to Rs 16,000 crore and is facing funds crunch, the CM is committed to continuing the several welfare schemes in the state for poorest of the poor, said Narayana.

Later, speaking to media after a review meeting, Narayana said that an amount Rs 8,000 crore was estimated for the construction of 1.2 lakh houses in the State.

This massive housing programme was expected to be completed by 2018 June.
Foundation course for rural area students rom the coming academic year 2017-18, the government will implement foundation course for high school students in rural areas too.

Already municipal school students are availing this basic foundation course and the parents felt very much happy about reforms in municipal schools, the Minister said.
He added that foundation course at 150 rural schools are being run in each district of Nellore and Chittoor.

Later on, Narayana distributed Rs 102.21 crore fund to 10,15,651 DWCRA women groups in eight municipalities of Chittoor District. He gave Rs 9.5 lakh cheque to Tirupati women group as Pasupu Kunkuma scheme, and also gave away prizes to winners of Janmabhoomi competitions.

Tirupati MLA Suguna, District Collector Siddarth Jain, Municipal Corporation Commissioner Vinaya Chand and Sub-Collector Nisanth Kumar were present during this concluding meet.