Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu met officials from Housing department and Andhra Pradesh Township and Infrastructure Development Corporation (APTIDCO) to review the status of housing projects coming up in the state at the Secretariat on Friday.
The officials informed the Chief Minister that out of 12,85, 017 eligible households under the Affordable Housing Programs (AHP) and Beneficiary Led ‘Individual House’ Contribution (BLC), 6,81,733 were sanctioned and others were under screening and will be sanctioned soon.
Under NTR Nagar (AHP) 4,52,657 houses along with beneficiaries were finalised for construction and slab works have been done in 47,576 while ground works in the other houses were completed.The Chief Minister was informed that houses under NTR Urban Housing are being completed at great pace and out of the 1,99,980 houses sanctioned, 28,743 have been completed with others being in sanctioned and grounded stages. Praja Sadhikara Survey was taken as a key source of information for the sanctioning and background verification for deciding the beneficiaries.
In order to speed up the process of sanctioning, the Chief Minister directed the officials to relax the qualification criteria for AHP and other housing projects. The eligibility criteria such as compulsory income below Rs 3 lakh, marital status, employment with government for an annual salary of Rs. 3 lakh or below and previous beneficiaries were relaxed.
Speaking on the eligibility criteria, the Chief Minister said, “Some of these parameters look good on paper but are just causing problems to the deserving in acquiring a house under this scheme. In case an individual has been a beneficiary long back, it doesn’t mean that his house is in a livable condition now.”
“The policies must be framed in a manner which will benefit the poor. It must not cause a trouble instead”, he added.
The Chief Minister asked the officials to finish up the phase one of finalizing 2,81,436 beneficiaries and upload the list on the portal by this month end.
“Funds will be released immediately. I want the finalized list of beneficiaries and a quick progress on phase two. I will conduct regular reviews to monitor the progress”, he added. MA&UD Minister, P. Narayana and Special Chief Secretary Satish Chandra were also present in the meeting.