Hemant Soren talks to senior officials at his residence in Ranchi on Wednesday. (Hardeep Singh)

Ranchi, April 6: Hemant Soren today asked the urban development department to identify spaces in the state capital to rehabilitate displaced residents of Islam Nagar, even as the government swallowed a bitter pill: the state had sent a proposal in 2009-10 to the Centre seeking JNNURM schemes for the locality that came under the anti-encroachment scanner yesterday.

Many residents of Islam Nagar have already lost their illegal settlements falling in areas that originally belonged to Government Polytechnic.

The deputy chief minister, who also holds urban development portfolio, chaired a high-level meeting, during which it was revealed that Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) and urban development authorities had sent a proposal seeking basic facilities for residents of Islam Nagar under the Centre’s Basic Services for the Urban Poor (BSUP) project.

BSUP is a part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

“We now need to rework the BSUP proposal sent to the Centre concerning Islam Nagar. The new proposal will include a place for rehabilitation of the poor residents of the locality, because BSUP provides for extended civic facilities for slum-dwellers and not encroachers,” said a senior official of the urban development department.

The meeting at Hemant’s residence was also attended by chief secretary S.K. Choudhary, home secretary J.B. Tubid, DGP G.S. Rath, urban development secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni and RMC chief executive officer Vinay Kumar Choubey.

“The government will identify land for rehabilitation of slum dwellers of Islam Nagar as well as other areas that have come up illegally,” the deputy chief minister said after the one-and-a-half-hour meeting with the top brass.

Sources in the urban development department added that many among more than 150 slums identified for a major revamp under BSUP were located in places like Railway Colony (owned by the railways) and vacant tracts belonging to Heavy Engineering Corporation Ltd (HEC). RMC aims to set up 9,000 dwelling units in the 150-odd slums.

However, before sending the 2009-10 proposal, the municipal and urban development authorities did not get consent from the parent departments.

Science and technology was the department in question in case of Islam Nagar, as the Government Polytechnic functions under it. Under BSUP, the municipal corporation gets an allocation of over Rs 200 crore from the central and state governments.

While RMC will have the onus of developing civic infrastructure, including approach roads, street lights, water and power supply in the proposed units, a sum of about Rs 1.44 lakh will be spent on setting up a dwelling unit comprising a bedroom, living room, kitchen, toilet and bathroom, for every displaced family. The dwelling units will be based on the designs set by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO).

Hemant also directed the officials to ensure peaceful celebrations of Sarhul and Ram Navami in the city.