Affordable Govt housing units in Bhubaneswar
The Odisha state government is all set to create 5,000 affordable housing units in Bhubaneswar soon by involving private developers.
Government will provide land to private developers for the housing units at Gothapatna. The expression of interest will be published within two to three months.
The government will undertake such a venture for economically weaker sections (EWS) and lower income groups (LIG) for the first time after it enunciated the Scheme for Affordable Urban Housing in Odisha 2012. The government has kept a benchmark of income up to Rs 7,500 per month as EWS and Rs 7,501 to Rs 15,000 as LIG.
The H&UD secretary said the houses will be available in the range of Rs 3.5 lakh to Rs 15 lakh. Once the housing projects come up there, government will connect the locality by city buses.
After Bhubaneswar, government plans to roll out the scheme in others cities such as Cuttack, Berhampur, Sambalpur, Rourkela and Puri, besides Jharsuguda, Jajpur, Kalinganagar, Angul, Balasore and Paradeep in the first phase.
Odisha needs an estimated 4.10 lakh EWS and LIG urban housing units at present. The state needs funds to the tune of Rs 15,120 crore to meet the target of houses for beneficiaries under Rajiv Awas Yojna (RAY) alone while Bhubaneswar alone needs Rs 1,680 crore for the same.
Government aims to create 20,000 housing units per year for EWS and LIG category using different models involving the city development agencies, Odisha State Housing Board and private developers.
Department for International Development (DFID), UK, will provide Rs 400 crore for creation of affordable houses in eight Indian states, including Odisha, soon, DFID country head Sam Sharpe said on Tuesday.
Real estate developers hope the DFID funding will boost the affordable housing market. “Most of the buyers in the EWS and LIG segment work in unorganized sectors. They don’t get house loans easily. Flow of funds will definitely boost the sector’s growth,” said D S Tripathy, joint secretary of Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (Credai). (Source – The Times of India)
