Minister hands over keys of house to flood victim

Minister for Co-operation Kadakampally Surendran handed over the keys of the 2000th house under the Co-operation Department's Care Home project to Siddharthan, a tailor from Kumarapuram, on Saturday.

The project was launched to provide houses for those left homeless by the unprecedented floods of 2018. Sidharthan and his wife Kumari Thankam’s house at Padinjattil lane was also destroyed during the floods.

The new house for the family, with two bedrooms, a hall and kitchen, was built by the Thiruvananthapuram Bank Employees’ Co-operative in Anamukham ward.

The keys were handed over at a function organised as part of the ‘Co-operation day celebrations. A total of 2,092 houses are being built as part of the ‘Care Home’ project. Though the area of the houses under the project was fixed at a minimum of 500 square feet, many houses were built in much larger areas, at costs up to ₹10 lakh.

The project witnessed the coming together of co-operative societies at the grassroot level and organisations like the Uralungal Labor Contract Co-operative Society, Co-operative Academy of Professional Education working on a voluntary basis to provide technical guidance for the project.

The Department of Co-operation provided ₹5 lakh for each house, with the local co-operative societies pitching in with their profit shares. Flood resilient designs, with houses on raised pillars, have been used for many of the houses located in flood-prone areas.

Thrissur district has the maximum number of 497 houses completed, while 362 houses were completed in Ernakulam and 212 in Idukki.