VIJAYAWADA: The State government is planning to launch the construction of the housing for the poor project on October 2, if all goes as per the plan. The foundation for the first phase of 15 lakh houses is likely to be laid by Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, and the government plans to start the second phase works of the remaining 15 lakh houses next year.
According to Principal Secretary (housing) Ajay Jain, all the houses will conform to energy efficiency norms and will be ready in 30 months.
“We are planning to start the works of phase 1 of the housing project, which is perhaps one of the biggest affordable housing projects ever, on October 2, marking the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The phase-2 works will be launched next year. We are targeting to complete the works in 30 months, meaning one lakh houses a month and over 3,000 houses a day,” Ajay Jain said, addressing a webinar on energy efficient buildings organised by Centre for Media Studies and Building Energy Efficiency Project on Wednesday.
The principal secretary explained that all the houses were designed with a three-fold objective to provide thermally sustainable houses which bring down the temperature by 4 to 6 degree Celsius, reduce the power consumption and thereby electricity bills, and bring down carbon emissions. “In fact, we are also going to provide energy efficient fans, three LED bulbs and two LED tube lights to every house. Besides aiding in bringing down the carbon emissions, the beneficiaries will also benefit from it. It is a win-win situation,” he noted.
The government has already identified about 30 lakh beneficiaries, of which 27 lakh will be given land and a house. The remaining three lakh people have land and the government will construct houses for them. Each house has a plinth area of 360 sq ft and a carpet area of 300 sq ft. The government would be spending Rs 600 per sq ft. The government had already planned to distribute the documents of house sites to the beneficiaries, but has deferred it thrice due to pending court cases. However, the officials said that works pertaining to development of layouts were under way. The 30 lakh houses will be coming up in 17,000 layouts.