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Housing project comes to grinding halt
Housing schemes have come to a grinding halt in the temporary capital city Vijayawada due to unavailability of land. Furthermore, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has not taken up any housing project under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Housing for All (Urban) (PMAY-HFA) expressing its inability in procuring land to implement the scheme.
Vijayawada: Housing schemes have come to a grinding halt in the temporary capital city Vijayawada due to unavailability of land. Furthermore, the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation (VMC) has not taken up any housing project under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Housing for All (Urban) (PMAY-HFA) expressing its inability in procuring land to implement the scheme.
Highlights:
- VMC finds it difficult to procure land to construct the houses to the poor
- Around 200 acres of land is required to built houses under PMAY-HFA
- No steps have been taken by the VMC to procure land though houses were sanctioned in 2016
The VMC officials said that unavailability of sufficient land in the city is the major problem to take up housing scheme in the city. The VMC did not take up the PMAY-HFA scheme though houses were sanctioned under the scheme in November 2016 itself. “
The irony is that the VMC did not conduct a survey at canal bund and tank bund areas to identify slum dwellers”, sources said. There is no progress in the proposal to acquire the revenue land at Jakkampudi village near Vijayawada city for the housing project. The state government or the VMC reportedly did not show much interest to acquire the land.
State government has accorded the administrative sanction to the managing director, Andhra Pradesh Township and Infrastructure Development Corporation (APTIDCO) for construction of 1,20,106 houses in 38 Urban Local Bodies under PMAY - HFA(Urban) in three models. The government has approved to provide Rs 1.50 lakh as the state government’s subsidy in addition to the Central government’s subsidy of Rs 1.50 lakh.
The VMC has an opportunity for the construction of houses as many as possible under the scheme. According to a senior officer of VMC, at least 200 acres is required to build multi storeyed (G+9) houses under the PMAY – HFA scheme. “We did not find sufficient land in the city to take up the project. The lands of VMC have already been distributed to the poor in the past”, said the officer. He also said that the VMC has decided to build houses above 14,000 houses under the scheme but no steps were taken towards the target.
According to Indiramma survey, half of the city population has been living in rented houses and inhabitants of canal bund and Krishna river bund have been demanding for allotment of new houses that were built under JNNURM scheme. The VMC failed in utilising the JNNURM scheme and surrendered above 10,000 houses expressing its inability to build them due to funds crunch. The corporation also did not distribute hundreds of houses of JNNURM due to some legal hurdles relating to land dispute and some of the houses are still in progress even as the scheme ended.The city sees a rapid increase of population in recent years but the increase in number of houses does not match with it. House rents have shot up after the announcement of new capital city Amaravati as demand for houses in Vijayawada increased maniifold.
By dasari srinivasa rao
