BDA Vice Chairman Sanjay Singh Reviews Affordable Housing and Slum Redevelopment Projects

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Government has taken up “Housing for All” as a top priority to create a new ecosystem in urban areas making housing available for all. Earlier, the State Government has notified its Policy for Housing for All in Urban Areas, Odisha- 2015 to ensure that all residents of urban areas of Odisha have access to a range of housing options within their affordability limits.

Bhubaneswar, one of the first planned cities in India has witnessed a huge surge of growth in recent times. Being an administrative, economic node of the state and hub for healthcare & educational economy in the eastern region; Bhubaneswar experiences rapid growth of population. As a consequence of this growth, proliferation of slums and squatter settlements resulted due to shortage of affordable housing options.

As a pioneer organization to achieve the objective of the State Government for Housing for All and to address the issues of Affordable Housing in the city, Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) has taken up several Affordable Housing & Slum Redevelopment Housing Projects to cater the housing shortage in the EWS segment. Currently, BDA is taking up seven (07) nos. of Affordable Housing Projects on EPC and PPP model with 8162 nos. of EWS dwelling units in total.

Out of the 7 projects, 4 nos. of projects with 5500 nos. of EWS dwelling units are being taken up on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode under Model- III & IV of Housing for All policy of the State Government. Balance 2662 nos. of EWS units are being taken up on EPC mode in three (03) nos. of projects using Pre-cast Technology across the city. In addition to the same, 14000 nos. of EWS dwelling units in eight (08) nos. of projects have been sanctioned.

Today, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Vice Chairman, BDA along with officials from BDA made a site visit to (1) Nilamadhav Awas Yojna at Chandrasekharpur, (2) Affordable Housing Project at Chandrasekharpur, (3) EWS Housing Project at Gadakna, (4) Mahaveer Awas Yojna at Gadakana and (5) Shanti Nagar Awas Yojna at Satya Nagar and reviewed the work progress. The representatives from the developers and contractors of concerned projects were also present. The progress/ status of construction work including the status of the external infrastructure facilities, bottlenecks/issues of each of the projects were reviewed and discussed in detail. During the review, the developers/contractors of each project were instructed to complete the projects within scheduled timelines.

In addition to this, Vice-Chairman, BDA has also instructed that projects which are to be handed over by developer/ contractors in a phase-wise manner to BDA should have adequate physical and social infrastructure facilities which would enable BDA to allot these units to eligible beneficiaries soon after handing over the same to BDA. The officials were also directed to ensure quality control at project sites and timelines for completion of the projects effectively.