The ambitious Housing for All scheme has planned to construct two crore houses all over the country.
Inaugurating a Southern region workshop on Prime Minister’s Awas Yojana, Joint Secretary, Urban Housing and Mission Director of Housing for All, A. Abhijat, that besides providing new houses the scheme also envisaged improving amenities in existing dwellings.
In view of the top priority being given by the Central Government to the programme, the workshop was being organised to deliberate on aspects like selection of beneficiaries, making use of the latest technology and implementing the scheme with the assistance of banks, Mr. Abhijat said.
Municipal and Housing officials from Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Puducherry are participating in the two-day workshop.
He complimented the model (for selection of beneficiaries) chosen by Visakhapatnam that had safeguards to prevent those already owning houses to take advantage of the scheme again and termed it exemplary.
Andhra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu were ahead in selecting the beneficiaries and identifying sites.
District Collector N. Yuvaraj gave a detailed presentation on the model followed in Visakhapatnam and the understanding reached with the Railways, Port Trust etc.
Deputy Secretary S.C. Jena said the scheme could be used to provide alternative housing for slum-dwellers.
Telangana MEPMA Mission Director M. Dana Kishore; Commissioner, Municipal Administration, Tamil Nadu, G. Prakash; Director, Town and Panchayat, Tamil Nadu,
K. Meher Bhushanam; Palani Swamy of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board; Municipal Commissioner Pravin Kumar and VUDA Vice-Chairman T. Baburao Naidu participated.
