Don’t compromise on quality of construction: Jagan to housing officials

VIJAYAWADA: Directing officials to complete the construction of houses taken up under various schemes as per schedule, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy asserted that there should be no compromise on the quality of construction. Besides suggesting them to conduct quality evaluation tests at every stage, he underlined the need to keep Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) available to ensure quality in construction of houses.

Holding a review meeting on housing at his camp office in Tadepalli on Thursday, the Chief Minister directed the officials to closely monitor the construction of houses for which the State government has already spent Rs 5,655 crore in the current fiscal.

Stating that the main objective of the government is to provide shelter for all people who don’t have their own houses, he said basic infrastructure like drinking water, drainage system and electricity should be developed in all the layouts by the time the construction of houses is completed. 

The official machinery should take follow up action periodically to achieve the housing targets by effectively monitoring the construction activity. When the officials informed him that every Saturday is being observed as Housing Day and inspection teams are visiting the layouts to monitor the progress of construction works, the Chief Minister told them to upload the details of the visits on related websites. He asked them to focus on construction of houses for the people who have chosen option 3.

The officials informed him that DPRs relating to the provision of basic infrastructure in the houseing layouts are ready. The services of engineering assistants in village/ward secretariats should be utilised wherever necessary and they should be made partners in strict adherence to quality standards in house construction, he suggested.

Housing Minister Jogi Ramesh, Municipal Administration Minister Audimulapu Suresh, Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma, AP State Housing Corporation Chairman D Dorababu, Special Chief Secretaries Ajay Jain (Housing), Y Sri Lakshmi (MA&UD) and K Vijayanand (Energy), AP TIDCO MD Ch Sridhar, Finance Secretary KVV Satyanarayana, Land Administration Secretary Imtiaz and Special Secretary (Housing) Rahul Pandey attended the meeting.