VADODARA: Eight years after it was launched, the controversial Sanjaynagar housing project under the Pradhan Mantri Aavas Yojana saw only 22% of work completed on the site for the houses for the urban poor.
The housing scheme on the Harni-Warasiya Ring Road was planned as a public-private partnership (PPP) project.
The PPP scheme involved houses for the urban poor being constructed on one part of the land, while the remaining was to be used by the developer for commercial purposes. The project was among a series of such projects taken up in the city.
Leader of the Opposition Congress in VMC, Chandrakant Shrivastava, said that against 2,200 to 2,300 dwellings that were razed at the site, only 1,841 were considered for rehabilitation. He added that the beneficiaries were to be paid a rent of Rs 2,000 until the scheme came up, but this was not done for the last three years.
Shrivastava and others submitted a memorandum to the VMC commissioner stating that 50 notices were issued to the contractor. They claimed that the contractor was given 18 months when the project kicked off in 2017. The total pending rent to beneficiaries now totalled Rs 11 lakh, the memorandum states.
Shrivastava said that the contractor was given a time of 36 months in 2022 for completion of work, but even that deadline expired now. He suggested that the VMC should build the houses for the beneficiaries and blacklist the contractor. The remaining land can be monetised by the civic body as its rate doubled since 2017.
