Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: To keep the city clean, over 2,000 municipal corporation employees work diligently from 4 am every day. Many of these employees do not have their own homes and still reside in various slums. To ensure they get proper housing, the municipal administration has taken the initiative.
The administration has built a minimal number of residences for municipal employees in locations such as Delhi Gate, Bhadkal Gate, Central Octroi Naka, and Seven Hills. Most of these residences are for Class IV employees. Additionally, many sanitation workers live in Gandhinagar, Harshnagar, Labour Colony, Shah Bazaar, Shatabadinagar, Ambedkarnagar, and Ghati areas. Due to the lack of their own homes, these employees live in rented accommodation. To address this issue and ensure they get proper housing, the municipal employee union approached the administrators last week. In response, administrator G Sreekanth took initiative and discussed the matter with the Town Planning section officials on Thursday. He instructed Deputy Director Manoj Garje to provide land for this project. The administrator directed to identify the available spaces (of housing societies to whom building permission had been sanctioned) within amenities where housing projects could be implemented.
Construction professionals to build the project
An initial assessment will be done to determine how many sanitation workers do not have their own homes. After confirming the total number of employees needing housing, further steps will be decided. The land for the housing project will be provided by the municipal corporation, while construction professionals will be responsible for building the project. Employees will be required to secure the necessary funds through loans.
2005 Scheme
In 2005, the then municipal commissioner Aseem Kumar Gupta initiated a housing project for sanitation workers on 1.5 acres of land in Satara, providing homes for 62 employees. The cost of each home was around Rs 2.5 lakh, with loans provided by a private bank. Today, the price of these row houses has risen to Rs 15-18 lakh. Some employees have even built two to three additional floors on the same land.