RCC to construct houses for 300 poor people in Mujib Barsha
BSS, Rajshahi
Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) will construct houses for 300 marginal families under a project taken for rural peoples welfare in Mujib year declared by the government on the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. RCC Mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton said at a function around three hundreds poor people will get easy term loan to build houses under the Livelihoods Improvement of Urban Poor Communities (LIUPC) Project with support of Community Housing Development Fund (CHDF).
As a part of it, Liton distributed housing loan and inaugurated construction work of one of such houses in the function held in Paba Natun Sawtalpara area here yesterday afternoon as the chief guest. On the occasion, he also assured of providing houses to 50 more less-income families with his personal initiative in the city this year to mark the Mujib Barsha. Chaired by RCC Chief Executive Officer Dr Sharif Uddin, the function was addressed, among others, by Panel Mayors Shariful Islam and Tahera Khatun, Secretary Abu Hayat Rahmatullah, Executive Engineer Nur Islam and Chief Community Development Officer Azizur Rahman.
Liton said proper housing for poor rural people has become a prerequisite to achieve sustainable development goals (SDG-11), and ensure planned urbanisation and continued economic progress of the city. He said the city corporation will take initiatives to build affordable houses by adopting a need-based coordinated plan to tackle the housing crisis. Liton focused on stronger collaboration between the government and non-government organisations, and involving public representatives and other relevant stakeholders to promote plans for people living in urban poor areas.
The meeting was told that the city corporation has started implementing the LIUPC project in cooperation with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in order to achieving long-term sustainable growth by eradicating urban poverty and Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The project has been designed to reach initially the unserved and underserved urban population in the city and to promote livelihoods and living conditions of 1.80 lakh poor people living in urban areas.
Meanwhile, 261 slum dwellers are living in brick-built houses at present driving out their long-lasting living life in thatched or mud-houses as they got community housing in the city. Earlier, each of the beneficiaries having land but not house were given loan worth Taka two lakh for the house building purposes. They had just moved into their new houses constructed with support from CHDF and the LIUPC Project.
