KOCHI: The Kochi Corporation is planning to speed up the implementation of the housing scheme under the Basic Services to Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme as the time limit of the project is set to expire by March 31, 2012. The civic body has already given financial aid to nearly 4,300 beneficiaries within its limits and is hopeful that it will be able to expand the scheme to other eligible applicants before the stipulated time. There are nearly 6,000 beneficiaries within the corporation limits.The BSUP is a Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission scheme to tackle the sub-optimal living conditions of the urban poor in 54 mission cities of India. In Kerala, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram have been included as mission cities of BSUP.“Under the scheme, an amount of Rs 1.2 lakh will be given to the beneficiaries. For that they should at least posses a minimum of 1.25 cents of land. The rest of the amount for the construction of the house can be availed of as loan from commercial banks,” said Kochi Corporation Town Planning Committee chairman K J Sohan.He said so far the scheme has been implemented successfully in the city. “The Syndicate Bank, Canara Bank and the Oriental Bank of Commerce had helped us in arranging loans for the beneficiaries. Recently a meeting was convened here by Union Minister K V Thomas in which various other banks also expressed their willingness to help us in implementing the scheme,” he added.With the support of the banks, the corporation was hopeful of extending the programme to other beneficiaries too before March 2012. “Normally, the beneficiaries will have to hand over the land documents to the corporation. It will be kept under the custody of the civic body for a period of seven years. But as the documents are essential for them to procure the loan from the bank, the condition has been modified.They can hand over the documents to the bank which in turn will give a letter to the corporation,” he added.
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