Hyderabad: Housing Minister Ponguleti Srinivas Reddy said that the construction of Indiramma houses in the State is proceeding as planned, without relying on any assistance from the Centre. In a conversation with the media persons at the Secretariat on Saturday, the Minister said despite the challenging financial condition of the State, the government is giving top priority to the construction of Indiramma houses.

He said unlike the Centre, which was offering Rs 72,000 for each house in rural areas and Rs 1.52 lakh in urban areas, would not support the housing costs. But the State government’s Rs 5 lakh in the first phase is helping the poor.

He said that a survey has also been conducted as per the instructions of the Centre and this is in the final stage. In fact, the state government’s norms for identifying the beneficiary were stricter, when compared to that of the Centre’s.

He expressed satisfaction that the construction work of the houses is also progressing at the expected pace. He said that the previous government had constructed double bedroom houses unscientifically and many housing units were incomplete and did not even have minimum facilities. All these houses will be repaired and facilities will be created and allocated to the beneficiaries.