The civic body, prodded by the Centre, has taken up construction of housing estates worth Rs 180 crore for people living in shanties in seven pockets of east Calcutta and Garden Reach.

The slum-dwellers, mostly ragpickers, have encroached on 36 acres of Calcutta Municipal Corporation (CMC) land in Rajarghat, Kachharipara, Hatgachhia, Jalpara, Anandanagar and Garden Reach.

Each flat in the estates, following the Centre’s women empowerment policy, will be allotted in the name of a female member of the family.

The CMC director-general (town planning), Dipankar Sinha, said a slum-dwelling family will get a 330-sq-ft flat.

Each block will be five-storeyed and each estate will have a community hall, a park-cum-playground and proper drainage network.

The Centre, which sanctioned the project under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission five months ago, has asked the CMC to complete 60 per cent of work by August.

Speaking about the CMC’s first housing scheme for the poorest of the poor, mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya said: “The state-managed Mackintosh Burn has been awarded the contract to construct 8,980 flats within a year. Construction has started on Akra Road, in Garden Reach, where 320 flats will be built.”

Half the project cost will be borne by the Centre and 30 per cent by the state government. The CMC’s investment will be around Rs 30 crore.

“If the current market value of land (Rs 50 crore an acre) is taken into consideration, the CMC’s investment in real terms will be over Rs 1,800 crore,” said civic commissioner Alapan Bandyopadhyay.

Before taking possession of the flat, a beneficiary family will have to shell out Rs 30,000, for which the state government will make arrangements for bank loans. The interest on the loan will be borne by the government.