HYDERABAD, Nov 13: DCO Ali Ahmed said on Thursday that housing schemes for the poor would be launched on 2,000 acres of state land in the district under a government project for providing shelter to the shelter-less.

He said at a meeting on identification of government land and modalities for implementing the scheme that although sufficient land was available at the site for proposed Gulshan-i-Sarmast Housing Scheme but it had been expanded further under the directives of chief minister to make it comprehensive and beneficial for the poor of entire district.

He directed the DDOs of revenue and mukhtiarkars to identify government land, especially in the rural areas of Hyderabad and Qasimabad talukas, for the establishment of proposed housing scheme.

He informed the meeting that a non-governmental organisation, National Rural Support Programme (NRSP), had been assigned the task to convince the poor to take maximum benefit of this scheme. Hyderabad would hopefully be made a model district as far this project was concerned.

DEVELOPMENT SCHEMES: The DCO said at another scheme the same day that different public welfare oriented development schemes had been launched in the district at a cost of Rs80 million under MPAs priority schemes during the current financial year.

He said that Rs10 million had been allocated to each MPA of the district for carrying out development works in their constituencies and asked the officers of departments concerned to prepare feasibility reports after receiving proposed schemes from the MPAs.

The DCO informed the meeting that as many as 371 different development works had been undertaken at a total cost of Rs234 million from 2003 to 2007. Out of these, 352 schemes had so far been completed while work on the remaining schemes was in progress.