Government to provide Bengaluru’s poor with affordable housing in skyscrapers

BENGALURU: In a bid to maximise available resources to provide affordable housing to the poor in the city, the government will amend the CM’s one lakh housing scheme by building skyscrapers instead of the previous ground-plus-three-floors plan.

On Monday, after the cabinet meeting, law and parliamentary affairs minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the government will build a ground plus 14 floors for increasing the number of housing units in the city.

“With lack of availability of land and possible constraint on resources, the cabinet has resolved to increase the number of floors under the housing scheme to 14 instead of the previous three floors,” he said.

Byre Gowda said the main reason for changing the plan was to increase housing opportunities in the existing land. “We will re-tender the housing projects and are expecting it to be finalised by February for laying the foundation stone,” he added.

He said the government has identified 50,000 beneficiaries. “We will provide Rs 1.2 lakh subsidy for the general category and Rs 2 lakh for the SC/ST population. The rest will have to be borne by the beneficiary. If there is a price escalation then the same will be conveyed to the beneficiaries,” he said.

State to bear PRR land acquisition

The cabinet cleared Rs 4,500 crore towards land acquisition costs for construction of the 65km Peripheral Ring Road (PRR). Byre Gowda said the cabinet tried all possible measures to bring down the financial burden on the government, including land pooling and urban planning methods, but to no avail.

“As a last resort, to ease traffic congestion in Bengaluru, the cabinet resolved to foot the land acquisition bills, which are likely to be in the tune of Rs 4,500 crore. Overall, the government estimates the project cost to be close to Rs 17,000 crore,” he said.