BENGALURU: In an effort to maximise the available resources for providing affordable housing to the urban poor in Bengaluru, the state government is bringing an amendment to the chief minister’s one lakh housing scheme by building skyscrapers instead of the previous plan of ground-plus-three-floor structures.On Monday, after the cabinet meeting, law and parliamentary affairs minister Krishna Byre Gowda said the government is going to now build ground-plus-14-floor structures to increase the number of housing units in the city.“With lack of availability of land and possible constraint on resources, the cabinet has resolved to increase the number of floors under the housing scheme to 14 floors instead of the previous designed three floors. The changes in the cost to state exchequer and the beneficiaries is currently being looked into and will be conveyed individually to them,” said the minister.Gowda said the prime reason for changing the plan is to increase the housing opportunity in the existing land which is available.“With the changes in plans, we are going to re-tender the housing projects and are expecting it to be finalised by February for laying the foundation stone,” he said.Gowda said the government has already identified 50,000 beneficiaries for the housing project and will be accorded the housing based on their individual capacity to pool the rest of the money.“We are providing Rs 1.2 lakh subsidy for the general category and Rs 2 lakh for the SC/ST population. The rest will have to be borne by the beneficiary. If there is a price escalation, then the same will be conveyed to the beneficiaries,” he said.Gowda said the government will be pooling the resources from the various available central government schemes like Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojna apart from the Ambedkar housing scheme and the Basavanna housing scheme of the state.PRR land acquisition to be borne by stateMeanwhile, the cabinet also cleared Rs 4,500 crore towards the land acquisition costs for the construction of the 65km preipheral ring road (PRR) connecting Tumakuru Road with Hosur Road.Gowda said the cabinet tried all possible measures to bring down the financial burden on the state government including land pooling and urban planning methods, but to no avail.“As a last resort, to reduce the burden on the city roads and ease the traffic congestion in Bengaluru, the cabinet has resolved to foot the land acquisition bill which is likely to be in the tune of Rs 4,500 crore. Overall, the government estimates the cost of the project to be close to Rs 17,000 crore,” he said.Gowda said the construction of the road as such will be taken up with the assistance of various available infrastructure funding schemes like Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and other possible avenues, apart from possible private public partnership (PPP).

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