With its efforts over the past three years to find suitable land for constructing flat complexes under the Livelihood Inclusion and Financial Empowerment (LIFE) housing project failing to generate any results, the city Corporation has decided to identify suitable puramboke land or other government-owned land which can be used for the project.
Though the team entrusted with the responsibility of identifying suitable land for the project had identified various private plots in different parts of the city, the prices quoted by the owners made it unviable for the Corporation.
“The Corporation has decided to identify puramboke land or government-owned unused land within the Corporation limit, which can be used for constructing flats under the LIFE project. We will write to the village officers for information on such land,” said an official handling the LIFE project in the Corporation.
The civic body had initially formed a search committee to identify land for constructing flats under the LIFE project.
Outskirts
The team had identified several pieces of land mostly in the outskirts of the city, close to the borders of the Corporation area.
After the Corporation issued a call for suitable plots for construction of flats, many had also responded from different parts of the city. But a majority of them turned back as the rates offered by the civic body were much lower compared to the market rates.
The civic body has been requesting the State government for more flexibility in the fixing of the rates, but there has been no response so far.
The Fisheries Department had in 2019 issued such an order for some of its housing projects, enabling the acquisition of land at rates close to the market rates.
Some of the lands which were identified with affordable prices were later found unsuitable, due to their location and slanted geography.
The construction of a flat under the LIFE project is currently progressing in Poonkulam.
The keys are expected to be handed over to the beneficiaries in the coming months.
The land at Poonkulam was bought some years back using funds from the Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan.
At Mannammoola
The civic body is also making yet another attempt to construct flat complexes for landless and homeless SC families at an 1.72 acre plot of land at Mannammoola, which is now being occupied by a few families under the leadership of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Ambedkar Democratic Party of India.
