The State government has decided to launch a housing scheme for construction workers under which beneficiaries will be given an assistance of ₹4 lakh each.
Meant for registered members of the Tamil Nadu Construction Workers’ Welfare Board, the scheme can be used for either building houses on lands of beneficiaries or purchasing tenements built by the Tamil Nadu Urban Habitat Development Board.
There are two streams under the scheme, one of which is a beneficiary-led contribution and the other is the purchase of tenements of the Urban Habitat Development Board. In the first stream, the minimum size of house is 300 square feet, for which the unit cost of ₹2.76 lakh and the additional cost of ₹1.24 lakh will be sanctioned.
If the beneficiary opts for the other stream, the norms under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) will be followed with a maximum assistance of ₹4 lakh.
An order, issued by the Labour Welfare and Skill Development department two weeks ago, said the actual number of members of the Construction Welfare Board, who would avail themselves of the scheme “is not known” and if the number of beneficiaries exceeded 10,000, it would be restricted to 10,000 in a year.
Four instalments
Pon Kumar, chairman of the Construction Welfare Board, said the assistance would be released in four instalments on the basis of verification by the authorities concerned. The government constituted committee at two levels – district and State – to monitor the selection and distribution of the assistance.
