Andhra Pradesh CM YS Jagan government urged to allot houses built over a year

Kakinada: More than 59,000 G+2 apartments meant for the poor are lying vacant without getting allocated to the beneficiaries for over a year here. It has become a case of 'too near yet so far away' for the hapless poor.

The reason: The State government has not taken a decision on those so far. These houses were sanctioned under the TDP regime and in all, 59,934 houses were planned in the East Godavari district. The officials invited tenders for 28,854 houses out of which 25,350 houses had been taken up for construction by the Andhra Pradesh Township Infrastructure Development Corporation (APTIDCO) and 16,772 houses had been completed by collecting Rs 1 lakh from each beneficiary as his share.

Remaining houses could not be commenced due to the problems like non-linkage of banks with the beneficiaries and some of the poor could not pay their share. However, the TDP government could not distribute the completed houses to the poor due to election code.

"More than 4,600 houses have been sanctioned to the poor in the Kakinada City, out of which 1150 houses were completed with an extent of 54 acres of land. The government has instructed the officials to identify the beneficiaries for remaining houses. Meanwhile, the election code was in force and we could not distribute them. Now, the present government is not responding to distribute the houses to the poor,'' said former Kakinada Urban MLA Vanamadi Venkateswara Rao.

He said that Jagan had promised during the election campaign that he would give back beneficiaries' share and distribute the house sites. But, he had not fulfilled his election promise till date.

The former MLA along with beneficiaries staged a protest in front of the vacant apartments, demanding that the government allocate the apartments to the beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the APTIDCO sanctioned G+2 apartments at Peddapuram (1728 in phase I and 1524 in phase II), Rajahmundry (3,904 in phase I and 3,670 in phase II), Ramachandrapuram (1,088 in phase I and 1920 in phase II), Mandapet (4,064 in phase I and 2,120 in phase II), Amalapuram (1632), Samalkot (1056), Pithapuram (854) and Kakinada (2,720 in phase I and 3,136 in phase II).

TIDCO Executive Engineer P Rita said due to bank linkage problems some of the houses have been stalled for construction and in several places like Kakinada and other areas, the site allotment has been abnormally delayed , so they could not complete it. She said that beneficiaries have been identified and houses were allotted. They could not be handed over due to various reasons, she said, adding that many of the houses were under progress.

The beneficiaries seek the Chief Minister's intervention in the matter for an early resolution to the problem.