Udupi (The Hindu): As many as 59 beneficiaries who had lost their land during the widening of National Highway 66, Malpe Beach Road and Doddanagudde Road, were given 1.5 cents of land each on a 1.05 acre government plot at Subrahmanya Nagar here on Wednesday.

Houses lost

Handing over the title deeds, Pramod Madhwaraj, Minister of State for Fisheries, Youth Empowerment and Sports, said that the poor beneficiaries had constructed their houses on government land earlier at Nittoor, Doddanagudde and Malpe. However, they were left with no choice and had to lose them on account of road widening work.

Funds provided

Hence, it was decided to provide them with land to build houses at Subrahmanya Nagar. The cost per cent of land at Subrahmanya Nagar was Rs. 3 lakh. This meant that the beneficiaries now had land worth Rs. 4.5 lakh. While those beneficiaries belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes would get Rs. 3.3 lakh for the construction of houses, the others would get Rs. 2.7 lakh for building houses in four installments. This too had been arranged.

The rules of the Rajiv Gandhi Housing Corporation barred granting of land beyond 1.5 cents to beneficiaries. However, it was essential that the beneficiaries constructed their houses within six months. Should they fail to do so, the land would return to the government. This was to ensure that they did not sell the sites allotted to them.

Lottery

The sites had been allotted to the beneficiaries by means of lottery. In this way, a fair procedure was maintained in which no one felt cheated with the sites they received. The entire process had been conducted in a transparent manner.

Once the construction of the houses was nearing completion, the Udupi city municipality would begin the procedure to provide water connections to these houses. The officials would also start transferring the names of beneficiaries for ration cards and voter’s list.

They would also be given RTCs of their lands, Mr. Madhwaraj said.

As many as 62 beneficiaries under the Vajpayee Nagar Vasati Yojane and 37 beneficiaries under the Ambedkar Nivas Yojane were given sanction certificates on the occasion.

Meenakshi Bannanje, president, Udupi City Municipal Council, Sandhya Tilakraj, Vice-President, P. Yuvaraj, municipal councillor and B. Narasimhamurthy, chairman, Udupi Urban Development Authority, were present.