VMC to construct over 600 houses for slum dwellers

The Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC) will construct housing units for over 600 families under Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojna in two localities of the city, its commissioner said.
VMC Commissioner H S Patel said here today that 613 new housing units will be built for beneficiaries who were residents of city's slums in Kalyannagar and Kamatipura that were demolished last year in November.
The residents were evacuated from their dwellings and relocated in the same area as Kalyannagar and Kamatipura falls under city's flood-prone zone and were situated close to the bank of river Vishwamitra, Patel told PTI.
The new houses will be built in Kalyannagar only but at a farther distance from the river bank, he added.

According to social activist Professor J S Bandukwala, the residents were shifted to city's Tandalja and some other areas under JnNURM scheme but they opposed the offer and demanded that they be resettled in the same locality as their source of livelihood was in and around their old habitation.
Patel said they have conceded people's demand and VMC will pay a monthly rental of Rs 3,000 till the constructing of houses.