The Union Government has approved the efforts of Rajkot Municipal Corporation (RMC) to make the city slum free. The RMC get the approval of constructing 3,600 houses from the Union government to make the city slum free at the worth of Rs. 257 crore for those living in untenable slums.
On Monday, the RMC announced that Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MHUPA) has given green signal to its proposals for relocating and rehabilitating 3,600 families living in slum pockets.
The RMC Rajkot will develop the slum pocket including Laludi Vokali on Canal Road; Ramnathpara, Bhavani Nagar and Navyugpura on the bank of Aji river; Sagar Nagar and Bet Dwarka near Randarda Lake; people living along the bank of other stretches of Aji river and some parts of Bharatnagar slum in western Rajkot.
Earlier, the RMC got green single from the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC) of MHUPA for these above four projects for which RMC submitted detailed project reports (DPRs) for them.
The civic body had forwarded six proposals after state government announced a policy for rehabilitation of untenable slum pockets on February 15 this year. Out the six, the Centre approved four projects.
Vijay Nehra, Commissioner of Rajkot Municipal said that this is a big step towards our Smart City goal of making Rajkot slum-free. Our prior preparations have helped us here. We are already redeveloping slums on public private partnership (PPP) mode in a big way. Rehabilitation of untenable slums was the only missing link in our goal of providing housing to all. After the state government announced the policy on untenable slums, we submitted DPRs and the Central government approved them on March 17.
According to the source, the state government will provide Rs. 4 lakh grant per dwelling units to an urban local body under the policy for untenable slums. Besides this, the Union government will provide additional Rs. 1.5 lakh grant per dwelling unit build under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in the category of affordable housing projects.
“Besides the Rs 4 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh grants from the state and Centre, beneficiaries will make contributions upto Rs 1 lakh each. Therefore, this scheme will not put any financial burden on the RMC,” Nehra said.
According to the statement of Alpna Mitra, the officer of RMC housing projects, 575 families of Laludi Vokali slum will be rehabilitated on a portion of the land that the slum is spread over. And 370 families of Bhavani Nagar, 175 families of Ramnathpara and 144 families of Navyug Nagar will be relocted to the rehabilitation site of Laludi Vokali.
Around 1,264 dwelling units will be constructed by civic body at the worth of Rs. 12.33 crore with one-bedroom-hall-kitchen at Laludi Vokali. It will be a ground-plus-three storey building and each house will have a carpet area of 30 square metre.
On the other side, 544 residents of Sagar Nagar and Bet Dwarka will be relocated to Morbi Road Bypass. And for the residents living on bank of Aji river, the civic body will construct around 1,176 houses in the Mavdi Area.
Additional 616 dwelling units will be constructed in the same Mavdi plot which was earlier encroached upon but was freed by a private developer and handed over to RMC under a PPP scheme.
And further Nehra said that RMC will also get a dedicated fund for slum rehabilitation. “The state and Centre will grant Rs1 lakh each to RMC for every house constructed on PPP basis. As of now, Rs18.70 crore have been sanctioned to RMC under this scheme. This fund will be parked with the state government and RMC will be able to use it for cross-subsidising other housing projects for economically and socially weaker sections,” he added.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/