Housing scheme stings TRS MLAs

Hyderabad:  The ruling TRS MLAs are in ‘self imposed exile’ from their Assembly constituencies  in Telangana as they fear  backlash from people over the allocation of only four two-bedroom houses  to each  village under the much-hyped new housing scheme launched by the Telangana government on Dasara this year.

Under pressure from local leaders and people of their respective Assembly constituencies, legislators made beeline to the Secretariat and poured out their woes before Housing Minister A Indrakaran Reddy and Panchayat Raj & IT minister KT Rama Rao on Friday.        

As per the orders issued by the government recently, the housing department accorded sanction for the construction of 60,000 2BHK flats, of which 36,000 flats will be allotted to rural areas and 24,000 flats will be allotted to urban areas.

Each Assembly constituency will be allocated 400 two-bedroom houses from the 60,000 houses sanctioned. The allocation between rural and urban areas shall be in the ratio of 240:160, if the constituency has both rural and urban areas.

As per the order, since the total number of panchayats in the state are over 8000, each village panchayat will get only 4 houses, A first time MLA from Karimnagar, who did not want to be named, told The Hans India that the legislators are receiving huge number of applications from each village in their area.    

The demand from local TRS leaders and women organizations was high. Considering the new scheme a big benefit from the TRS government, people are also lobbying strongly to include their names in the beneficiary list.    

Though the MLAs were given authority to select the beneficiaries, with the modalities not yet framed, the selection of beneficiaries has not taken off yet in many constituencies. 

Considering the issue as serious, the Housing Minister apprised Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao of the ground-level situation. The CM will soon hold a meeting with the MLAs and sort out the issue soon, sources said.        

Under the scheme, the unit cost for two-bedroom houses in rural areas was Rs 5,04,000 and in urban areas it will  be Rs 5,30,000.