C Shivakumar @ Chennai:
World Bank is likely to provide $500 million in assistance to Tamil Nadu government in building 40,000 homes for urban poor.
The move comes after state government had made the announcement in the floor of the house to build homes for urban poor.
A top housing department official told Express that World bank has accepted ‘Tamil Nadu Sustainable and Resilient Housing and Habitat Development for Urban Poor’ project and Department of Economic Affairs in the Union government has cleared it.
It is learnt negotiations are on with the World bank officials who to accord final sanction to the project. The World Bank officials are in the city and high-level meetings have been organized with them where in the concept note of the project prepared by the state government and cleared by DEA are discussed.
“The value of the entire project is $715 million of which World Bank has sanctioned $500 million,” the official said.
It is learnt that the World Bank officials will be visiting housing development projects on September 4 and inspect households which have been relocated and resettled from the rehabilitated waterways.
Sources said the negotiations had been on with the World Bank officials since May when a delegation of World bank undertook a scoping missionfor affordable housing project from May 16 to May 18. At that time, they held meetings with Tamil Nadu Infrastructure Fund Management Company, Slum Clearance Board and Chennai River Restoration Trust.
Interestingly, Tamil Nadu government has already taken Rs 4,145 crore loan from World Bank in 2015 for storm water drain network, water supply, solid waste and underground drainage network.
The aid from World Bank comes after Tamil Nadu has carried a demand assessment of 8.30 lakh houseless households under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in urban areas of the state under PMAY’s four components --- Insitu rehabilitation, Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme, Beneficiary led Construction (BLC) and Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP).
According to State Urban Housing and Habitat Policy (SUHHP) being drafted by German agency GIZ along with the state housing board, Tamil Nadu is facing a shortage of 1.5 million homes in the urban areas and there is an urgent need to regulate and streamline private urban rental housing to enable access to urban poor.
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