Bengal's PPP tenement project to be complete by 2016

The Bonhooghly Tenement Project, a PPP initiative of the West Bengal government's refugee relief and rehabilitation department, is expected to be completed by October 2016, the developers said Monday.

Initiated in 2006, the project to rebuild the decrepit refugee complex in north Kolkata was stalled in 2008 before it was revived by the Mamata Banerjee government in 2012.

Private promoter Eden Realty has now joined hands with real estate developer Siddha Group for the project which, when completed, will have 34 four-storeyed towers for rehabilitating 800 refugee families.

"After being delayed for many years, all issues have now been resolved. Construction has begun in full swing and we hope to complete the project before October 2016. Though we have been given 24 months' time, we intend to complete the project much earlier," Eden Realty chairperson Sachidanand Rai told media persons here.

Besides the lower income group buildings for refugee rehabilitation, the project also comprises over 1,800 higher income group flats that will come up in the 17 towers covering 22 lakh square feet.

Rai said the project cost of Rs.150 crore in 2006 has now more than trebled to reach Rs.500 crore.

The then Left Front government in 2006 had initiated the project to rebuild the decrepit refugee complex, built by the refugee relief and rehabilitation department in 1960 that later was declared condemned in the 1990s.

But the Trinamool Congress, then in the opposition, set up the "Bonhooghly Tenement Bashosthan Raksha Committee" and stalled the proposal, claiming that the refugees were unwilling to be resettled.