One lakh more houses to be distributed among homeless people in Feb next year

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DHAKA, Jan 22, 2021 (BSS) – As part of the government’s campaign to bring all landless and homeless families under housing facility, one lakh more houses will be distributed among landless and homeless families by February next year.

“On the occasion of the Mujib Borsho, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been working to bring all landless and homeless families under housing facility,” Prime Minister’s Principal Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus told BSS today.

He said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the distribution of houses among 66,189 landless and homeless families virtually at 10:30am tomorrow.

The government has completed 66,189 houses for the first time in the world to hand over among homeless and landless people, Dr Kaikaus said.

“On February 20, 1972 Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman visited Charporagaccha village in Noakhali district (now Luxmipur) and directed to rehabilitate the landless, homeless and helpless people,” he said.

The principal secretary said in 1996 the Awami League government came to power through an election and the worthy daughter of Father of the Nation Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina started welfare-oriented and development programs again.

Project Director of Ashrayan-2 under the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) Md Mahbub Hossain said a list of 8,85,622 families was prepared in 2020, of which 2,93,361 are landless and homeless families and 5,92,261 families have 1-10 decimal land but no housing facility.

He said Ashrayan has rehabilitated 3,20,058 landless and homeless families from 1997 to December 2020, adding, ” Ashrayan also rehabilitated 3,715 families by constructing 743 barracks under 44 project villages in 36 upazilas in 21 districts during the Mujib Borsho”.

The Ashran-2 project (July 2010-June 2022) has a target to rehabilitate 2,50,000 landless, homeless and displaced families at a cost of Taka 4,840.28 crore. Of the 250,000 families, Ashrayan has already rehabilitated 1,92,277 landless and homeless families across the country from July 2010 to June 2019. A total of 48,500 landless and homeless families have been rehabilitated in barracks while 1,43,777 families having own land (1-10 decimal) but no capacity to construct houses in semi-barracks, corrugated iron sheet barracks and specially designed houses.

He said the government also constructed 20 five-storey buildings at Khurushkul in Cox’s Bazar for 600 families, who are climate refugees as a special gift by the Prime Minister.

Armed Forces Division is also implementing more 119 multi-storey buildings and related activities through Detailed Project Proposal (DPP), it said.

Md Hossain said members of the rehabilitated families are getting training for increasing awareness on various issues, expertise and human resource development to enable them to be engaged in income-generation works.

He said the activities of the project will be accelerated further in future to alleviate poverty for fulfilling the ‘Vision 2021’ and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.