Gujarat striving to bring down affordable housing price

The affordable houses that the government plans to provide will not come cheap. The price of Gujarat Housing Board's proposed one BHK flat in major cities will be around Rs 11 lakh. The two BHK one will cost between Rs 18 lakh and Rs 21 lakh. The State Chief Minister Narendra Modi had made affordable housing a major electoral plank in the last assembly polls.

Sources in Gujarat Housing Board (GHB) said that the board is still exploring options to reduce costs further, but there is a little scope for it. The board had floated seven tenders for projects worth Rs 790 crore for new schemes at Transport Node, Hathijan and Kalapinagar in Ahmedabad, Rangoli and Munjka in Rajkot, Tarsali in Vadodara along with Ganeshpura (Chhaparabhatha) in Surat.

Tenders were approved for one project each in Rajkot, Vadodara and Surat. However, the costs for Ahmedabad and one project in Rajkot worked out to be prohibitive. This led the government cancelling the tenders. It will float them again soon. The carpet area of the projects will be greater than those of flats offered by private builders. The State government will also provide all basic amenities.

GHB projects are not likely to take off before the end of this year, and will take at least three more years for them to be complete. The State government allocated more than Rs 300 crore to GHB for affordable housing projects this year - after a gap of several years. In order to provide housing to low income group (LIG) citizens in urban areas, the government allocated Rs 285 crore to GHB and other local bodies.

It has also allocated Rs 21 crore for management and maintenance of open land and measurement. This will include covering housing areas with fencing, compound walls, gates and deployment of security personnel to prevent encroachments.