Bhubaneswar: If everything goes as per plan, the Capital city will have a four-storey building at Unit III by November 2018 which would meet the housing needs of construction workers and urban homeless.
Christened as ‘Social Equity Centre’ (SEC), the state government will develop the housing project under Project Kutumb.
The SEC has been proposed to come up on a built-up area of 37,645 sq ft at Unit-III in Kharavel Nagar area as part of the Smart City project.
The four-storey building will have rental accommodation for construction workers with 200 beds along with an Aahar Centre (subsidised cooked meal), water ATMs with RO purifier and other basic amenities. This apart, 50 additional beds will also be reserved for urban homeless.
The Aahar centre would come up on the ground floor with a dinning space for at least 140 people. There would be provision for public toilets near the dining hall, said sources.
The SEC will have community space on each floor with terrace area, multi-use halls and play area for children and social gatherings. A separate and secured space for women would also be ensured inside the building.
Significantly, the big dwelling unit would have 12 family rooms which can be availed on rent, said the officials. It would help those who are not having roof over their heads, they added. Many people in the Capital city spend night under the open sky.
To ensure security of the beneficiaries, the centre will have two guard rooms on the ground floor and one each at the entry-exit points of the dining hall and the dormitory.
The project funded by the state government through Orissa Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Board involves an expenditure of around `5.40 crore and is expected to come up within 18 months.
“The city’s poor will stay in the SEC which is a single-window system to help the marginalised section of the society. It will be equipped with hybrid toilets, water ATMs, Aahar centre and other basic amenities,” says Mayor Ananta Narayana Jena.
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has laid the foundation stone for the project on the Labour Day in the presence of Housing and Urban Development Minister Puspendra Singh Deo, Steel & Mines and Labour & Employees State Insurance Minister Prafulla Kumar Mallick and others.
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