Only 18% of the double bedroom houses that have been constructed by the Telangana government, as part of its 2BHK housing scheme, have been handed over to beneficiaries in the state. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s ambitious scheme promises double bedroom houses to all homeless BPL families in the state. While the number of houses handed over to beneficiaries is low across the state, in ten districts in the state not even a single 2BHK has been handed over yet.
In Jogulamba Gadwal district, 605 houses have been constructed, but none have been handed over yet. Nagarkurnool has 390 houses, Adilabad 596 houses, Komaram Bheem Asifabad 8 houses, Peddapalli 262 houses, Jayashankar Bhupalpally has 930 houses, Yadadri Bhongir has 481 houses, Medchal 677 houses — but none of them have been handed over to beneficiaries yet despite being ready. In Narayanpet and Vikarabad, zero houses have been constructed and hence the government has nothing to hand over to beneficiaries in these two districts.
The double bedroom houses at Kollur
In many other districts, despite houses being ready, only a small number of these have been handed over to beneficiaries. In Medak, while 2,245 houses are ready, only 128 have been handed over. Similarly, in Kamareddy, 4,198 2BHKs have been made but only 651 have been handed over. In Nizamabad, only 207 houses out of 2141 houses constructed, have been handed over. In Mancherial too the situation is the same. Out of 644 houses that have been constructed, only a meagre 30 have been handed over. In Hanamkonda too only 224 out of 1424 houses have been distributed. In Nalgonda and Rangareddy districts too the number of houses handed over was only around 1% of the total sanctioned.
In very few districts like KCR’s hometown Siddipet and Khammam, nearly 45% and 60% of the ready houses have been handed over to the beneficiaries. In Siddipet, 4,400 2BHKs have been handed over out of the 9,824 that have been made and in Khammam 3,206 have been handed over out of the 5,343 houses that are ready.
Despite having the maximum number of houses that have been sanctioned, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Limits (GHMC) limits has also seen very few being handed over. Here, 56,066 houses have been constructed by the government but only 5.9% of them, which is 3,313 houses, have been handed over to beneficiaries.
The 2 BHK homes built overlooking the Hussain Sagar Lake in Hyderabad
Mahesh Konagala, All India Congress Committee member believes this housing scheme played a vital role in TRS forming the government twice in Telangana. He also believes that KCR is waiting for the election to distribute the houses. “A majority of poor people have been left homeless in Telangana because of KCR’s greed to use the scheme for political mileage. KCR is surely waiting for general elections to allot these houses, so that he gets undue advantage of the scheme. But the fact is that he will end up paying for this.”
A source in TRS who preferred to be anonymous said it isn’t true that the TRS is waiting for the election to distribute the houses. “Quite often, while those who are given the houses are happy, hundreds of others who haven’t got the houses end up turning against the government. For this reason, it is advisable not to wait till the elections. It is better that the houses that are ready are distributed right away, so that people who don’t receive the house don’t hold the grudge for too long. They will understand that the work is underway and will know that they will get the houses someday.”
2 BHK homes constructed at Hyderbad's Malakpet
CPI State secretariat member Tekkalapally Srinivasa Rao said the TRS government is relying on pomp and propaganda rather than fulfilling the aspirations of the people. While speaking at the party council meeting in Warangal last week, Srinivasa Rao said: “It’s been eight years since TRS came to power, however it failed to implement one of its major promises — double bedroom houses for the poor. KCR is enjoying power and ignoring the issues faced by the people. The TRS chief’s intention is to gain huge publicity by making hollow promises to the people.”
“The CPI will bring together like-minded parties to intensify its fight against the government until it provides double bedroom houses to the poor,” Srinivas said.
The KCR government formulated the double bedroom housing scheme in October 2015 and in 2018-19 fiscal year, Rs 2,643 crore was allocated to the scheme. In the 2020-2021 budget, Rs 11,917 crore was allocated for the scheme. In March 2022 the Telangana government decided to launch a new double bedroom scheme under which over four lakh houses would be constructed at a unit cost of Rs 3 lakh per house for those who own plots but were unable to build their own home.