A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court has directed the State government and the Kochi Corporation to inform the court of the impediments in the implementation of the housing project for slum dwellers under the Centre’s Rajiv Awas Yojana Scheme in Mattancherry.
The Bench asked the government and the Corporation to file their responses in three weeks.
The directive came on a writ petition filed by Sunrise Kochi, an NGO working for slum dwellers of Mattancherry. It said that the construction of the apartment blocks had been entrusted with a contractor following a directive by the High Court on a petition moved by the NGO. As per the agreement with the contractor, the construction of the apartments should have been commenced from Feb 2017 and completed by February 13, 2018. However, only the foundation stone for the apartment block no.01 had been built. Since then, there had been no progress in the work. The construction work for the apartment block no.2 was yet to begin.
The NGO had alleged inordinate delay on the part of the State government and the Kochi Corporation in constructing the two flats for housing the 398 families residing in slums located in Ward No. 2 of Mattancherry. The petitioner had pointed out that the Rajiv Awas Yojana was formulated by the Centre with the sole intention of rehabilitating slum dwellers.
