Mumbai to provide housing to poor at reasonable rates

PUNE - Floor space index (FSI) of 2.5 - equal to that in Mumbai - will soon be available in areas under the Pune Municipal Corporation and the suburban Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation to give a fillip to housing for the poor, Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan said Friday.

He said FSI of 2.5 would boost the governments efforts to provide housing for the poor and deprived sections of the people in both Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.

Chavan said this after inaugurating the first phase of the Rajiv Gandhi Housing Complex and distributed keys to the slumdwellers of the Kashiwadi area.

The FSI is the ratio between the plot area and constructed area - and a higher FSI enables the realtor to construct more on a given plot of land - meaning more living or working space in the same given area.

Chavan said the government had prepared a plan to make the entire-state slum-free, including the rural and urban areas.

Accordingly, in urban centres, we shall provide homes to the poor at reasonable rates and in the rural centres, we will give homes for only Rs.70,000, Chavan said.

In order to ensure that the maximum number of poor people could get benefit with affordable houses, the government would soon come out with the orders granting the extra FSI for Pune, the states IT and academic capital, and Pimpri-Chinchwad, Chavan assured.