Five lakh houses to be distributed to beneficiaries by Ugadi, says Housing Minister

The Andhra Pradesh government aims to hand over five lakh houses to beneficiaries by the coming Ugadi festival, in addition to the three lakh houses already distributed since the formation of the NDA government, Housing Minister Kolusu Parthasarathy said at a press conference at the Secretariat on Tuesday. He said the government plans to provide nearly 16 lakh houses to beneficiaries over five years.

The Minister said the government had set a target of completing 15.59 lakh houses in five years, of which three lakh have already been finished, while the remaining 12.59 lakh would be completed over the next four years. Five lakh more houses would be ready by Ugadi and another 87,000 by June, he said, adding that housewarming programmes would be held every three months as directed by Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.

He said construction of 3.03 lakh pending houses under PMAY 1.0, recently extended by the Centre, would be completed by December. He noted that 3.47 lakh beneficiaries had applied under PMAY Gramin through the Awaas app and urged eligible families to register before the end of the month.

A separate vigilance report found that Rockcrete Infrastructure and Logistics Private Limited had allegedly left 47,850 of the 50,402 allotted houses incomplete and was involved in irregularities amounting to nearly ₹80 crore, he said. The government had initiated recovery and legal action in the affected districts, the Minister added.