Bhubaneswar: The state housing and urban development department will set up a technical cell to implement the city's affordable housing projects in a time-bound manner.

The city-level cell will include officials from various stakeholders in the projects, including the government, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), and also a private agencyselected through a tender process. The department has already floated tenders for the purpose.

"We hope to build about 20,000 affordable houses over the next three years. It will be a huge task and we will require expert collaboration for this," said a housing and urban development official.

He said the selected private agency would initially enter into an agreement with the government for a year for timely completion of the projects. The agreement may be extended upon satisfactory progress.

The private agency will deploy quality professionals to provide technical and managerial support to the projects and apprise the government of the progress from time to time.

The BMC and the BDA will collaborate with the technical cell officials in identifying the beneficiaries and also the project sites.

"We are committed to ensure successful implementation of the government's Housing for All scheme," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

"We have already identified beneficiaries for various projects under different components. The participation of external experts will largely ease the job," he added.

The city administration here has initiated two affordable housing projects at Chandrasekharpur and Shanti Nagar, while two others are in the offing at Nakhara and Gadakana. The houses are being built under two schemes - the Centre's Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna and the state's Housing for All scheme.

"Quality living is the right of every person. In cities such as ours, the urban poor are often deprived of this right. They are an integral part of our society and it is the government's job to ensure their well-being. It is good that they are prioritising the affordable housing projects," said social worker Alok Kar.