Telangana Housing Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy has said 59,000 hut dwellers will receive priority under the second phase of the Indiramma housing scheme, with the state aiming to provide homes without moving poor families far from their livelihoods.
Ponguleti made the announcement in the Telangana Assembly on Thursday while responding to questions from several legislators. He said the government would not adopt a policy of relocating poor families 30 to 40 km away from their existing sources of work and income.
Under the scheme, houses are being sanctioned by treating each Assembly constituency as a separate unit. The minister said the approach was intended to provide housing that protects the dignity of beneficiaries, including in areas where land prices have reached between ₹150 crore and ₹200 crore an acre.
Ponguleti said the selection process was being conducted transparently. Officials are physically verifying the homes of beneficiaries selected through the draw, he said. Names will be removed if verification finds that a selected person belongs to another constituency, according to the minister.
The state is providing ₹5 lakh in financial assistance at no cost for house construction under the Indiramma scheme. Ponguleti said he was not aware of any precedent in which a state or the Union government had provided a similar level of free assistance. He also said the government would examine positively suggestions from legislators that the assistance should be increased because ₹5 lakh may be inadequate for construction.
The minister said the two phases of the programme would require more than ₹40,000 crore for about eight lakh houses. The first phase covers 4.5 lakh houses and is estimated to require approximately ₹22,500 crore. The second phase covers 2.5 lakh houses and is expected to require around ₹11,000 crore, while another ₹5,500 crore has been estimated for one lakh houses in urban areas.
About 3,200 houses approved during the first phase but later stalled because of minor construction deficiencies have been regularised and cleared, Ponguleti said. Payments to those beneficiaries were expected to be released by the end of the week.
The minister also said the government was identifying land reserved for poor families during the former united Andhra Pradesh, along with land acquired but not allotted. District collectors have been instructed to allot these sites to eligible beneficiaries in their respective constituencies within a month.
Ponguleti said the present government was selecting beneficiaries on the basis of eligibility rather than political considerations. The state’s next steps include completing physical verification, releasing pending payments and directing district administrations to allot identified sites within the stated one-month deadline.
