Housing board draws huge response in Ahmedabad & Bhuj

Gujarat Housing Board (GHB) has launched 13 housing schemes for lower-income group (LIG) and middle-income group (MIG) in 10 locations across the state. While it got a huge response in Ahmedabad and Bhuj, it has not been that encouraging in Surat, Jamnagar, Sanand, Mehsana, Patan and other places.

Under the second phase of the Mukhyamantri Gruh Yojana, GHB launched more than 10,000 units. The housing board is coming up with one BHK housing unit, measuring 35 sq m, for LIG I category and 1.5 BHK unit of 45 sq m area for LIG II category. For MIG category, GHB will build 2.5 BHK residential units over 65 sq m area. Saturday, November 30, is the deadline for submission of application forms.

The housing board has launched 1,920 units, comprising 456 units for LIG-II and 1,296 units for MIG in Gota and 168 units for MIG on Sola Road. Nearly 10,000 people have already applied for LIG and MIG schemes in Ahmedabad.

Similarly, the GHB has received nearly double the application forms compared to the number of units launched for the LIG-I category. The housing board has received nearly 1,050 application forms against 600 units. The response, however, has been poor in other towns and cities.

Against 1,736 units launched in Sanand, only 600 application forms have been received by the GHB while the response has been only 50% in Surat. Of course, it is extremely poor — less than 15% — in Mehsana and Patan.

In the first phase of the scheme, too, the response was not encouraging in Surat, Rajkot and Vadodara. While the response was very good in Rajkot, it was quite cold in Surat and Vadodara.

As a result, the housing board was forced to extend the deadline for submission of forms.

GHB has adopted a new tendering process to bring down construction cost. “Instead of the standard procedure of statement of rates of material, we have adopted a turn-key project style to bring down construction cost considerably,” said housing commissioner Mona Khandhar.