BANGALORE: The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) will build two lakh houses on 300 acres in different localities of the city.

Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy announced this after a three-hour meeting with Housing Minister D.T. Jayakumar and officials of the BDA and the Housing, Revenue and Urban Development departments here on Tuesday.

Land recovered

The houses will be built on government land recovered from encroachers by the Revenue Department. Out of the two lakh houses, 1.60 lakh will be allotted to middle-income groups and the rest to poor families. The houses for the poor will be given on rent for 20 to 30 years. Details about the construction and cost of each house will be worked out in the next 20 days.

Group housing

Under the Ashraya scheme, the Government has decided to construct group housing for families living below the poverty line in Bangalore. The proposal will be placed before the Cabinet for approval, the Chief Minister said.

As many as 38,000 houses have been constructed on revenue land in Bangalore. Tuesday's meeting decided to issue possession certificates to the occupants of 15,000 houses.

Mr. Kumaraswamy said the Government's housing programme had received a setback because of rising land prices in rural areas. The Government had not allotted sites in the last four years under the Ashraya scheme. Due to soaring land prices, it was difficult to purchase land according to government guidelines.

Market price

Land would now be purchased at the prevailing market price as landowners were refusing to sell at the current rates fixed by the Government, he said.

Six lakh houses will be constructed under the Ashraya scheme.

Since the implementation of the scheme is slow, the Housing Department has been instructed to construct 50,000 houses a month. A sum of Rs. 50 crore will be released each month for this purpose. About 1.75 lakh houses were built in 2006-07, he said.

Suvarna Gramodaya

Under the Suvarna Gramodaya programme, 10 acres will be acquired in each of the selected villages for allotment of housing sites.

As many as 1,127 villages have been selected in the first phase.

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