Chandigarh, December 28
If the dwelling plans for the poor by the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) materialise, 2010 will witness real progress on the slum rehabilitation front.
“The task of providing quality living to the city’s poor is quite big but we are putting in a lot of effort in this direction. The most challenging task the CHB faces in 2010 is rehabilitation of slum dwellers in 18 colonies, and make Chandigarh a smoke-free and slum-free city in the country. The two-phased scheme has already been included in the City Development Plan,” said Sanjay Kumar, Housing-cum-Finance Secretary, UT Administration.
It was way back in 1979 that the CHB had been first assigned the work of rehabilitating the jhuggi dwellers. Under the scheme, 2,712 sites had been developed in Dadumajra and Karsan that won CHB its first National Award from HUDCO, recalled Mr Sanjay Kumar.
G J S Rosha, Chief Engineer, CHB, said:“In Phase I, the CHB plans to construct 6,368 units with an average gross density of 58 units per acre. In the second phase, 17,473 units will be constructed.
While 80 per cent of the project cost will be borne by the Centre, 12 per cent will be met by contributions from the beneficiaries, and eight per cent by the Chandigarh Administration.”
Against the target of 25,728 dwelling units for the slum dwellers, the construction work has already started on 12,864 units and the CHB hopes to hand over 600 units by March, 2010. The UT Administration has earmarked 356.38 acres of land for the rehabilitation project. Out of this, 216.31 acres located at four locations — Dhanas, Maloya-I, Sector 49 and Sector 38 (W) — have been made available to the CHB, which has paid Rs 198.28 crore on account of the cost of the land to the Chandigarh Administration.
Rosha said up to November 30, 2009, the CHB had spent Rs 143.81 crore on the construction of dwelling units.
It has received Rs 145.49 crore as central share of the scheme and Rs 30.99 crore as state share.
The CHB is expecting Rs 178 crore more from the Centre in the current financial year.