VIJAYAWADA: The State government is all set to finalise new rates for urban housing projects by the end of this month and go for reverse tendering in September. Reverse tendering will be held for 1.02 lakh houses which were awarded to contractors by the previous TDP regime, but haven’t progressed beyond the basement level. This was informed by officials to Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, who, at a review meeting on Wednesday, told them that they needn’t take the latest Standard Schedule of Rates (SSR) as a base for calculating the prices.
“There is no need to fix the rates based on the SSR to finalise the reverse tendering process. Since sand and land are free, and the cement will be given on subsidy, the rates should definitely come down. Take the opinion of experts from reputed institutions while finalising the rates,” the CM told the officials.
Of the 1.02 lakh houses for which reverse tendering will be held, 65,000 haven’t reached even the foundation stage, while 37,000 houses are at basement level. Jagan instructed the officials to ensure that there will be no scope for irregularities in the new procedure.
The officials told the CM that they would finalise the rates in the next two weeks and that the reverse tendering process would be initiated in September. They also presented the status of the urban housing projects across the State. Besides those identified for reverse tendering, the officials informed the CM that there were 1.75 lakh more houses at various stages of construction.
Purchases above Rs 1 crore to be on public domain
Vijayawada: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has said that all government purchases above Rs 1 crore will hereafter be put on public domain to ensure corruption-free governance. “We should become a model to the nation. There should be no scope for corruption and scams. We came across scams in the purchase of uniforms, books, shoes supplied to school students. There is corruption in the purchase of eggs, tractors, autos and cars in the previous government.
We should cleanse the system by ensuring that all deals are done in a fair and transparent manner,’’ the CM asserted. During a review meeting, he directed the officials to study transparent policies being implemented on purchases. “Any purchase which exceeds `1 crore should be uploaded on the government website along with the details including the supplier,’’ he said. The Chief Minister said that the next round of review on government purchases would be held on August 28