Three lakh subsidised homes are handed over in a single day, in a record of sorts

In what is said to be the largest such event to take place on a single day, 3,00,346 families in Andhra Pradesh performed house-warming for their new homes on Thursday. The 3 lakh-plus beneficiaries got their new homes under the Andhra Pradesh government’s NTR Housing Scheme.

The owners set foot in their new homes around 11 a.m., the appointed time on a day regarded as auspicious, in the presence of Ministers, elected representatives, and District Collectors. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu inaugurated the ceremonies remotely from Vijayawada.

The previous occasion when the A.P. government did something similar was on October 2, 2017, when one lakh units were handed over to beneficiaries. A typical house under the scheme, built on an individual plot, is a single-bedroom unit of 750 sq. ft. carpet area, with a living room, kitchen and a bathroom. Where land was not available, apartment complexes of up to four floors were built. The beneficiaries were chosen through a Smart Pulse Survey.

G. Tirupattama of Mulapadu in Krishna district said, “Owning a pucca house has been a long-cherished dream.” A. Venkatapadma from Machilipatnam echoed similar feelings.

No stopping now

Mr. Naidu said the State would go ahead with the housing project even if the Centre did not support it. Beneficiaries put in ₹2.5 lakh towards the cost, and got State subsidy of ₹1.50 lakh in villages and ₹2.50 lakh in cities. The Central subsidy was ₹1.50 lakh.

The government planned to build 20 lakh houses by 2019, at an estimated cost of around ₹50,000 crore. The scope for corruption in such a large scale construction project was eliminated by ensuring that all payments were made via the NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) gateway and through regular monitoring of the projects’ progress through geo-tagging, he added.