Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy said that the dream of making Andhra Pradesh a hut-free state could be achieved by 2012.
He said this after inaugurating the ‘JNNURM Housing Complex’ in the city.
?In its manifesto before the 2004 general elections, The Congress party had promised to construct 40 lakh houses will for the poor. But, the promise has not only been fulfilled, but the state has actually gone beyond it with the construction of 51 lakh houses so far,? he said.
Reddy said that 16 lakh houses will be completed by the end of this year, while another 16 lakh houses by 2012, in order to make the state hut-free with the construction of total number of 80 lakh houses.
Reddy also said that to meet the additional expenditure in the construction of houses due to the rise in the cost of construction material, the government has raised the amount of allocation for each house to Rs 45,000 from Rs 31,400 in rural areas and Rs 55,000 from Rs 43,000 in urban areas. He said that in case of SCs and STs, the amount is raised to Rs 65,000 in rural areas and Rs 85,000 per unit in urban areas.
These increased allocations would put a burden of Rs 700 crore on the government this year. The Chief Minister also informed that the government has decided to construct 28,000 houses under JNNURM for the poor people in Vijaywada and another 20,000 houses under the proposed ‘ Rajiv Awas Yojana’ of the Union government. State Minister G Aruna, K Pardhasaradhi, MP L Rajagopal and local MLAs and others were present on the occasion.