VIJAYAWADA: Nearing its ambitious target of providing pucca houses to all families in Andhra Pradesh, the State government on Thursday gave away three lakh houses for occupation.
It had on October 2 last year inaugurated one lakh houses.
Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu launched the house warming ceremony from Indira Gandhi Municipal Corporation Stadium here even as his Ministers and other public representatives joined beneficiaries in celebrations at their respective constituencies.
The state government had set itself a target of constructing 13 lakh houses in rural areas and 7.5 lakh houses in urban areas at a budget of Rs 50,000 crore.
A total of 5,80,849 houses have been constructed since 2014, of which 3,03,164 were built in 2017-18 at a cost of Rs 3,746 crore. Beneficiaries include 57,296 persons from the Scheduled caste community, 24,332 tribals, 1,43,005 backward class persons and 75,713 people belonging to the general category. The Chief Minister accused the previous Congress government of “misusing” Rs 4,150 crore of the total sum allotted for the housing scheme and reiterated that the ruling TDP government was working tirelessly to put a roof over the heads of the poor.
“The Centre has given just Rs 75,000 for each house. The State government has put in a matching sum to ensure that the residences are of good quality with all necessary facilities,” Naidu said, appealing to the beneficiaries to plant saplings around the houses to create better living conditions.
Housing Minister Kalava Srinivasulu, who was present at the function, said the credit of constructing the houses in such a short period “goes to the Chief Minister”. “Modi had promised 1 crore houses, bur hasn’t even constructed 30 lakh in the last four years,” he said.
“To ensure transparency in the housing scheme, payments were made online through the National Payments Corporation of India to the accounts of beneficiaries. The Opposition has been making baseless allegations against us despite this,” he said adding that the AP State Housing Corporation Limited had completed 39 years on Thursday.