Adilabad:Several poor families in villages of the erstwhile Adilabad district are on a long wait for Indiramma houses. Officials are accepting applications for the second phase of the scheme only from families living in huts, according to local residents and sources.
Several houses sanctioned earlier are also being cancelled as beneficiaries have failed to complete construction, while restrictions have been imposed on the sanction of houses in the second phase.
According to official sources, 21,767 Indiramma houses have been sanctioned in two phases in Adilabad district. Construction has begun on 14,948 houses while the work on 3,968 houses have been completed.
Adilabad district collector Rajarshi Shah said sanction letters had been issued to 750 beneficiaries in the second phase. Officials were concentrating on slab replacement and clearing the pending bills for Indiramma houses.
In Nirmal district, 9,268 Indiramma houses have been sanctioned, of which 3,150 have been completed.
A senior political leader from Adilabad said, “Many people are unable to give Rs 1 lakh as the initial amount for construction of basement even after getting the Indiramma houses sanctioned for them. They are leaving it like that, though the state government sanctions Rs 5 lakh in a phased manner for each Indiramma house.”
The leader said people who were able to start construction up to the basement level and were eligible were not getting Indiramma houses in the villages.
In Anandpur village of Jainad mandal, families in the SC colony at Ramnagar said they were still waiting for Indiramma houses. No family in the colony had received an Indiramma house so far, they said.
Most families in the colony live in huts covered with tarpaulin sheets, clothes and plastic bags. The families were shifted to the present location after the earlier colony was inundated by floodwaters from the Penganga river.
Families including those of Namala Anasuya, Kodicherla Devatha, Dhoorla Laxmi, Kodicherla Rachana, Pentaparthy Sangeetha and Kodicherla Chinnakka said they had been waiting for houses for long.
The women complained that the sarpanch and secretary of the gram panchayat were not extending support to their families. Kodicherla Devatha alleged that politics was influencing the sanction of Indiramma houses and that their families were being left out because they lacked political influence.
Devatha said that along with husband Ashok, the family was living along with two young daughters studying for degree in a small hut rebuilt in the space of an old hut, which collapsed due to the heavy rains. Several rich and middle-class people, she alleged, were getting Indiramma houses by showing cattle sheds as their houses.
Officials at the district level are insisting that applicants must be living in huts to qualify for sanction. MDPOs and village secretaries have reportedly told villagers that houses would not be sanctioned even to families living in houses with iron-sheet roofs.
Villagers alleged that some families living in better houses were also receiving Indiramma houses through political influence. They alleged that lists submitted by influential political leaders were being approved without proper verification of the housing status of beneficiaries.
Allegations are also that field-level inspections were not being conducted before houses are sanctioned and that lists backed by leaders close to the state government are being approved without difficulty.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
