HYDERABAD: Revenue and Housing Minister Ponguleti Srinivasa Reddy has said that he would contest the next elections only after ensuring the construction of more Indiramma houses in Hyderabad than the previous BRS government did.
The minister was reacting to the reported remarks by BRS working president KT Rama Rao that the Congress government would not be able to build a single Indiramma house in the state capital.
“If our government builds more houses than the BRS regime did during its 10-year rule, are you ready to stay away from the next election?” Srinivasa Reddy asked KTR.
Speaking to reporters at the Secretariat along with ministers Ponnam Prabhakar and Adluri Laxman Kumar on Wednesday, Srinivasa Reddy said that the government was committed to constructing one lakh houses for poor families in Hyderabad under Phase 1 of the scheme. He said that the government had identified land in many areas of the city.
“There are a large number of poor families living within the Outer Ring Road (ORR) limits. However, due to the lack of availability of land, only 18,500 houses were sanctioned inside the ORR limits in the past,” he explained.
Criticising the previous BRS government, the minister alleged that houses were constructed in urban and core urban areas only where government land was available, forcing beneficiaries to travel nearly 35 kilometres, making many housing colonies impractical and underutilised.
He said that guidelines for the urban housing programme were in the final stage and that 39 locations within the GHMC limits and inside the ORR had already been identified.
The minister added that the foundation stone for the project would soon be laid by Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy.