UP state government has announced the construction of about 40,000 affordable housing units across the state. The state government has launched its flagship Samajwadi Awas Yojna (SAY) for constructing houses in the state last year. The proposed housing units will not only be constructed by various development authorities and UPHDB but private developers will also contribute in the development.
The housing department of state government has distributed the construction work to different boards. According to the sources, 10,500 housing units will be constructed by UPHDB, 5,000 units by Kanpur Development Authority (KDA), 2,000 units by Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) and 1,000 units by Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) in their respective regions.
Besides this, the housing department has also approved two projects of private developers which would construct the 1,700 and 1,400 housing units in Ghaziabad and Moradabad respectively.
Apart from this, the housing department is also in its final stage of giving green flag to the DPRs of 11 developers who are showing their interest in the construction of 23,000 housing units. Out of these 11 developers, four are desirous to construct housing units is Ghaziabad, three in Hapur and one each in Meerut, Mathura, Agra and Barabanki.
The senior official of the housing department said that the proposal involves the change of land use which is to be done by the respective department in the state and the proposals are being studied by the development authorities.
Sedakant, Principal Secretary of housing in a statement said that the construction was expected to take off by 2016. The scheme has been conceptualized considering the demand for affordable houses. The affordability of the housing units will be a result of SOPs offered by the state government in the form of development and land use conversion charge waiver. The cost of the units will range from Rs 2,500 per sq feet to Rs 3,000 per sq feet.
This is the initiative step of UP Government to stop the growth of unauthorized colonies, many of which have cropped in the recent years in the suburbs of big towns like Ghaziabad, Noida and Lucknow.
According to the draft of the scheme, private developers will choose land, ostensibly agricultural, on their own, much like private colonies that have come up on agricultural land in brazen violation of the city’s master plan.
However the unauthorized colonies have been sanctioned their layout map from Panchayats but illegally. And now this will not be done anymore. Under the Samajwadi Awas Yojna, the layout plan of would be sectioned by development authority or housing board.
On this, the Senior official of department said that “No Panchayat can sanction a map of any builder. Any such colony is deemed to be classified unauthorized. The new scheme seeks to put a check on that.”