Even as the Wednesday’s judgement of the Supreme Court cleared hurdles for the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government to distribute housing plots to the poor people in residential zone-5 (R-5) of Amaravati, maverick Lok Sabha member from Narasapuram and rebel YSR Congress party leader Kanumuru Raghu Ramakrishna Raju has chosen to create further hurdles to the ambitious programme of the chief minister.
On Friday, the Jagan government sent proposals to the Centre for construction of over 47,000 weaker section houses out of the total number of 51,392 houses proposed in the R-5 zone of Amaravati. According to officials, the government decided to construct the houses with shear-wall technology.
“The government has sanctioned Rs 50 crore for the development of layouts for weaker sections housing colonies in Amaravati and already spent nearly Rs 20 crore for the same,” a CRDA official said.
However, on Saturday, the rebel MP wrote to Union minister for urban development Hardeep Singh Puri requesting that the Centre should not extend any financial assistance to the Jagan government for construction of houses in R-5 zone.
He asked the Centre not to respond to the proposals sent by the Jagan government.
“He has taken up the housing programme in Amaravati only to destroy the capital city and promote his three capitals plan,” he wrote to Puri.
Instead, he asked the Union minister to see that 30 lakh TIDCO houses, constructed during the Telugu Desam Party regime and were ready to occupy, be handed over to the beneficiaries immediately.
In fact, the Supreme Court has given the direction to the state government that no constructions should be taken up in the plots distributed among the poor till the case with regard to the capital is disposed of.
However, the chief minister has decided to go ahead with the construction of weaker sections housing colonies in these plots.
He directed the officials to prepare an action plan to construct houses and hand them over to the beneficiaries after distributing the house site pattas to the poor in the R-5 zone in the Amaravati capital region.
Jagan told them to pay special attention for expediting the construction so that the poor would get the houses at the earliest.
“The sooner the houses are constructed and handed over to the poor, the better would it be for their lives,” he said.