In a major push towards fulfilling the promise of housing for every poor family in Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu has directed officials to expedite the completion of ongoing housing projects. Reviewing the progress with the Housing Department on Wednesday, he set a target to complete 10 lakh houses by March.
As part of this, the CM instructed that 3 lakh houses should be ready for collective house-warming ceremonies next month, while another 2 lakh houses must be handed over to beneficiaries by Sankranti.
To streamline the process, projects have been categorized into A, B, and C groups, and construction must be finished accordingly. He also ordered a comprehensive survey within 15 days to identify families without houses, so that the beneficiary list can be finalized.
Fulfilling the election promise, the government will allot 2 cents of land in towns and 3 cents in villages to the poor for house sites. For larger families, the CM suggested exploring the option of constructing joint housing units.
Naidu further emphasized that funds should be released in phases to ensure timely completion of houses sanctioned under the NTR Housing Scheme.
Officials briefed the CM that under central schemes like PMAY (Urban), PMAY (Rural), and PM Janman, the state has been sanctioned 18,59,504 houses, out of which 9,51,351 have already been completed. In Kuppam constituency alone, ₹16.37 crore has been disbursed to 4,647 beneficiaries. Across the state, payments worth ₹919.29 crore to 2,73,709 beneficiaries will be released soon.
Housing Minister Narayana criticized the previous YSRCP government, accusing it of completely ruining the TIDCO housing projects. He alleged that houses were painted with the YSRCP party colors, but the contractors who did the work were not even paid. Meanwhile, Minister Kolusu Parthasarathy claimed that ₹2,900 crore meant for housing the poor was diverted by the previous government.