Chief Ministers KCR sky high 2BHK plan puts GHMC in fix

The civic body has estimated Rs 170 crore as additional burden for constructing 10,000 houses, but after the State government decided to construct one lakh 2 BHK houses, corporation officials are worried at the whopping Rs 1,700 crore fresh burden

Hyderabad: Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation officials are worried at the pace at which Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao wants them to build quality 2BHK houses for the poor within the corporation limits. Though the civic body has prepared an action plan to construct about 10,000 2BHK houses by identifying suitable land in 52 localities during the financial year 2015-16, the landslide victory of the TRS in the recent GHMC polls encouraged the Chief Minister to increase the number of new 2BHK houses in the city by threefold.

According to officials of the GHMC Urban Community Development wing, the civic body has estimated Rs 170 crore as additional burden for constructing 10,000 houses, but after the State government decided to construct one lakh 2 BHK houses, corporation officials are worried at the whopping Rs 1,700 crore fresh burden on it.

Though GHMC Commissioner B Janardhan Reddy directed revenue officials of Ranga Reddy and Hyderabad districts to identify 500 acre land to realise the Chief Minister's dream of constructing one lakh 2BHK houses, officials in both the districts have barely managed to identify 80 acres.

This has forced officials to burn midnight oil to come up with a workable plan of action to deliver 1 lakh houses in GHMC limits before the next general election despite severe shortage of funds and poor availability of suitable land. Going by the pace of construction in the past one year, officials had managed to construct only 396 2BHK houses in the GHMC limits at IDH Colony in New Bhoiguda at an estimated cost of Rs 42.81 crore.

This achievement was possible only because of the personal supervision and interest shown by the Chief Minister, MAUD Minister and Commercial Taxes Minister. “We welcome the Chief Minister’s decision to build more 2BHK houses for the urban poor. But, the ambitious goal of making Hyderabad a slum-free city will be a reality only if adequate funds and suitable lands are made available at the earliest,” said a senior GHMC official on condition of anonymity.

Interestingly, the Union government, in a GO dated September 26, 2015, sanctioned only 60,000 2BHK houses for the entire Telangana in the current financial year. The Centre wanted the allocation between rural and urban areas to be in the ratio of 240:160, if the constituency has both rural and urban areas.

The State government has fixed Rs 5,04,000 as the unit cost for each 2BHK house in the rural areas and Rs 5,30,000 in the urban areas. Elaborating on the possibilities, the GHMC officials said they had already readied designs for structures Ground+9, Ground+14 and Ground+16 plans to construct about 10,000 2BHK houses based on the availability of land at an estimated cost of Rs 7 lakh per unit.

The Centre would pay Rs 1.5 lakh per unit as its share, with the State government giving Rs 3.8 lakh and the remaining Rs 1.7 lakh would be borne by the civic body.