The earmarked land near Gothapatna. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, July 1: The Khurda district administration has identified 100 acres near Gothapatna on the city outskirts to build nearly 15,000 affordable houses.

The housing project, which will be executed in collaboration with real-estate developers or government-owned housing organisations from Odisha or other states, will help city residents as the houses will be priced between Rs 3.5 lakh and Rs 15.6 lakh.

Development commissioner Injeti Srinivas today admitted that the city was still facing a scarcity of houses for the medium income group, lower medium income group, low income group and economically weaker sections. The project will be the state government’s experiment on developing affordable housing units across the city.

Speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration of the regional branch of National Housing Bank, a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of India, today, Srinivas said: “At present, the city needs nearly 60,000 affordable houses. From the 100 acres, we can get 30,000 houses of various types, and out of which, 15,000 will purely cater to the affordable category. The rest will be for medium and higher income groups, so that the developers recover their investment.”

Srinivas, who is also the housing and urban development department secretary, said: “The state government will decide on the prices of the affordable houses, and not the developers. It will also provide benefits such as more floors, superior infrastructure, water and power supply.”

The department’s estimate finds that over 80 per cent of the city residents cannot pay more than Rs 20 lakh for their houses. To cater to the needs of the low and medium income groups, the city needs an investment of Rs 1,680 crore.

As the government agencies alone cannot bear it, private players will be invited to play a pivotal role in developing the affordable housing stock.

Odisha chapter president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association Binay Krishna Dash said: “If the state government offers us land, we will build affordable houses on that patch without any profit margin.”

Many housing colonies, built by the Odisha State Housing Board in the past for the low-income groups, however, are now struggling because of lack of civic amenities. “The state government should also start working on the infrastructure, communication and other issues to make the area habitable,” said Nrupa Kishor Patnaik, a resident of Pokhariput.