Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Housing scheme: adalat for potential beneficiaries

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The city Corporation will conduct a three-day adalat from Tuesday in a bid to reach out to potential beneficiaries who, owing to lack of valid land documents, are unable to avail themselves of the financial assistance provided under the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) housing project to be implemented in the coastal wards of the city.

At the adalat, to be conducted in 12 coastal wards, officials will collect and verify the land documents of those who have been listed in the coastal BSUP beneficiary list but have not come forward to sign the agreement for the financial assistance.

Corporation Welfare standing committee chairman S.A. Sundar said that of the nearly 3,000 persons included in the beneficiary list, only around 300 had signed the agreement for financial assistance.

“We are conducting this adalat to find out exactly why so many beneficiaries are not coming forward to avail themselves of the assistance provided under the coastal BSUP scheme even after being included in the list,” Mr. Sundar said.

The project is aimed at benefiting 5,500 families from 14 coastal wards in the district who will be provided assistance up to Rs.1.15 lakh for constructing houses. The assistance is to be given in four instalments after the beneficiaries remit an initial amount of Rs.14,500.

Mr. Sundar said that officials had not gone for detailed verification of documents during the survey for preparing the beneficiary list, which was held around seven months ago. However, during the verification and processing of the documents, the majority of the beneficiaries failed to produce them.

The adalat will not be conducted in the coastal wards of Pachalloor and Vellar where the implementation of the project has currently been put on the hold owing to existing zoning regulation under the Kovalam-Vizhinjam Area Development Scheme. The regulation prevents issue of building permits to land owners who do not have a minimum of 10 cents of land in these wards.

The major impediment to the implementation of the BSUP scheme in the remaining coastal wards is that the majority of the beneficiaries do not possess land of their own or have only possession certificates for their land. Councillors from the coastal wards in the city have demanded that the Corporation Council request the State government for a relaxation in building rules for the beneficiaries of the scheme. Mayor C. Jayan Babu will hold a meeting next week to explore the possibilities of how people who do not possess land documents or title deeds can be included in the project.

Mr. Sundar said another reason why beneficiaries were not coming forward to claim assistance under the scheme could be because they were not in a position to remit the initial payment of Rs.14,500. “In that case, we might have to look for other options such as going for bank loans. Other than that, it could also be possible that the beneficiaries do not have the land documents in their possession or there are some technical problems in the documents. Such issues will be discussed and verified on the spot at this adalat.”

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Housing scheme: adalat for potential beneficiaries

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