SHILLONG: The Rural Housing Scheme under which CGI sheets were supplied to beneficiaries as grant in aid has been discontinued.
This was informed by the Minister of Housing Zenith Sangma during the question hour on Thursday.
He also informed that the department has invited Expression of Interest for selection of suitable technology for construction of houses under a new scheme called Affordable Housing Scheme.
Earlier, Zenith Sangma informed that the Rural Housing Scheme was discontinued for the year 2010-11.
When the Leader of Opposition Donkupar Roy asked the reason for discontinuation of the Rural Housing Scheme, the Minister said that the implementation of the scheme was not satisfactory and added that many beneficiaries in Garo Hills did not construct houses from the CGI sheets but instead sold it to others.
He also said that the Government through the new scheme intends to provide better facilities to people.
Surprisingly, the minister even added that many CGI sheets which had accumulated since 1998-99 were found missing from the godown of the Government.
It was informed that the missing CGI sheets are those which were not collected by beneficiaries and asserted that police is inquiring into the matter. In a supplementary question raised by Chokpot MLA Clifford Marak asked if some officers may be involved in the stealing of the CGI sheets, Zenith Sangma said that nothing can be ruled out until police concluded its investigation.
MLA John Leslee Marak also questioned the minister if any study was conducted to find out the percentage of beneficiaries who sold the CGI sheets, the minister informed that no such study has been conducted.
Finally Chief Minister Mukul Sangma asserted that the Government through the new Affordable Housing Scheme wants to give proper accommodation to children to study since the poor percentage in Board examinations are also linked to poor housing since the domestic environment in their homes were not conducive for children to study. “We are trying to work out budgetary allocation for the project,” the Chief Minister said.
Later, MLA Saleng Marak lamented that houses under the Rural Housing Scheme in his constituency are so small and they usually call it “Chicken Shed.”
Lastly, NPP MLA James Sangma inquired about the method of selecting beneficiaries for the new scheme to which the Housing Minister replied that the guidelines for the scheme is at the drafting stage and the department proposes to constitute District level committees to select the beneficiaries.