Scheme to build one lakh houses moving at snail’s pace, fails to benefit many

By Y. Maheswara Reddy | NT

Bengaluru: The Chief Minister’ s One Lakh Housing Scheme was announced in 2017 by the then Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and it was supposed to be completed within 24 months. But not many beneficiaries got the possession of the promised shelters even after 30 months of the deadline.

On Monday, a social activist Sai Datta wrote a letter to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai highlighting the problems of poor people who have already paid money to Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation Limited and are eagerly waiting for the handover of shelters. Sai Datta has also brought the inordinate delay in completing the construction work by the contractors.

“The contractors have completed only structural work of 2500 houses out of 46,499 houses. The contractors’ grouse is the delay in receiving funds from Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation Limited. They said that funds were not released on time for the last five months,” said Sai Datta in his letter.

The Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation Limited invited tenders for One Lakh Multi-Storey Bengaluru Housing Programme and the housing projects were awarded in the year 2019 for the construction in multiple locations such as Anekal, Krishnarajapuram, Dasarahalli, Bengaluru South, Byatarayanapura, M a h a d e v a p u r a , Y o l a n d a , Yeswanthpur.

“The total tender awarded for phase-1 was 46,499 houses in which 32124 houses were only released for online booking. There is a shortfall of 14,375 houses that were not available for the past two years,” Sai Datta said.

It may be recalled that the Aam Aadmi Party Karnataka unit has condemned Minister for Housing V Somanna for not completing the construction of one lakh houses for poor people in Bengaluru. “Till now not a single house is handed over to the beneficiaries even after announcing the scheme five years ago,’’ said AAP Karnataka media convenor Jagadeesh V Sadam.

Meanwhile, AAP Bengaluru president Mohan Dasari has demanded the government to allot houses to 48,614 applicants who applied for houses during Siddaramaiah tenure along with those applied for houses during the BJP regime.

“According to the government data, 27 lakh people lost shelter due to floods between 2018 and 2021, but the state government has provided Rs 5 lakh each to 27 families to construct houses. I demand the government to release Rs 5 lakh each to all families who lost shelter due to heavy rains and floods,” Dasari said.