Hyderabad: The TS government, which is grappling with shortage of funds to build 2BHK houses for the poor, received a huge boost to its plans from cement companies on Thursday.
As many as 32 cement companies came forward to supply cement at Rs 230 per bag against the market price of around Rs 340. The companies agreed to supply 27.31 lakh metric tonnes of cement at this price for three years.
Officials of the TS Housing Corporation and cement manufacturers signed an MoU in the presence of housing minister A. Indrakaran Reddy on Thursday.
The 2BHK scheme is one of the major poll promises of the TRS in 2014 general elections. However, the TRS government failed to execute the project on full scale though it is about to complete half of its five-year term next week.
Contractors are not coming forward to take up works despite calling of tenders. They say that the unit cost prescribed by the government is financially unviable.
Contractors want higher unit cost which the government is not in a position to agree to, due to financial constraints. With this, the scheme did not make any headway.
The government succeeded in convincing cement firms to supply cement at cheaper rates. It also offered sand for free to encourage contractors to take up works.
“Cement and sand form the major expenditure component for construction. Now that we are offering sand for free and cement at cheaper rates, we expect contractors to come forward,” said Mr Reddy.
