Bengal plans more affordable houses for poor (Lead, correcting para one)

Kolkata, Aug 18 (IANS) The West Bengal government is planning to set up more affordable houses for the urban poor under different central government schemes, a minister said Saturday.

The government is mulling to build these housing projects, under the central government's flagship Basic Services to Urban Poor (BSUP) scheme and Rajiv Awas Yojana in West Midnapore, Purulia and South 24 Parganas districts.

"As property prices are on the rise in Kolkata, we are looking to develop more and more properties in the outskirts. We have already established about 54,000 dwelling units under BSUP and are planning to add more under this JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) scheme. Besides these, we are looking to add more dwelling units under Rajiv Awas Yojana," state Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim told reporters here.

"Some of the locations that we are looking at include Budge Budge (South 24 Parganas) and Kharagpur (West Midnapore). We are also looking at the industrial district of Raghunathpur (Purulia)," he added.

Hakim informed that these housing projects would be of one-room and two-room flats at affordable prices.