Hyderabad: The TRS poll promise of providing Rs 5 lakh grant to people who wish to construct houses on land owned by them in the city is creating confusion among beneficiaries and officials, and could change the very face of the programme. While officials are awaiting orders, the beneficiaries have begun petitioning mandal revenue offices in the GHMC limits to avail the grants.
Officials said that following the announcement by the TRS, applicants were unwilling to give up land to build group housing but were preferring to take the grant and build their own houses.
Despite this, officials said, they would go ahead with the construction of houses where more than half the work is over. A decision on the remaining projects will be taken after government’s official orders on the issue.
As per data, the GHMC has identified 40 locations to construct 9,837 houses in slums. Work has started at 38 locations and has been halted at some other places due to legal disputes. More than 50 per cent of the work has been completed only at 10 locations.
There are land disputes over the 2BHK sites at Annanagar near Rasoolpura and Ramakrishnanagar near Madinaguda. The corporation has decided to construct 404 houses in the two locations.
Sources said beneficiaries in slums began resisting the construction on 2BHK houses which were still in the excavation stage. The beneficiaries believed that their structure in the slum would be regularised, and that they could construct a house of their own with the Rs 5 lakh grant to be given by the state government.
Officials said this situation would not have risen if the government had released funds for the project in time in the first term.
A senior GHMC official said the corporation would go ahead with the work at locations where work order had been given and construction was nearing completion, The official said dues worth about Rs 500 crore was pending with the government due to which the work in about more than 20 in-situ slums was going on at a slow pace. In most of these locations, the work was mostly in the initial stages.
“Once the GO pertaining to Rs 5 lakh grant is released by the government, it might be a herculean task to construct 2BHK houses in in-situ slums as the corporation is already facing resistance from the beneficiaries,” he added.
On the other hand, beneficiaries are flocking to mandal revenue offices to apply for 2BHK houses. Luring them, several middlemen have been collecting large amounts promising a house allotment immediately after completion of work.
Collectorate authorities have asked beneficiaries not to believe middlemen and not to visit the mandal revenue offices but rather apply online at MeeSeva centres.
