CCC gives city hill dwellers the short shift
The refusal of the Chittagong City Corporation to hand over apartments to 161 poor families is patently unethical. In 2013, under a laudable project initiated by the then-mayor, the CCC started the construction of a seven-storey building by evicting 33 families living in the city's Batali Hill area assuring them that they would be the owners of the apartments upon meeting the terms and conditions of payments. Taka 10,000 was taken from each family as down payment and they were supposed to pay Tk 6.10 lakh for each unit in a monthly installment of Tk 2,500. The families happily agreed. But now the CCC has changed its mind, questioning the ability of these families to pay the installment. This is reprehensible.
How has the new administration assessed that these families would not be able to pay a paltry amount of Tk. 2,500 a month? Or are there some other factors at play here? The incumbent mayor, reportedly, said that the building would be used for other purposes without giving further details. May we ask what better purposes there could be than allotting them to people the apartments have been built for?
Building low-cost housing for slum-dwellers results in improved health and education outcomes. Construction of a seven-storey building for them in Chittagong was a good initiative, the proposed beneficiaries of which are facing the risks of being shortchanged by the CCC. The mayor should not go back on the city corporation's word. He should put things straight and make sure that the affected families get what was promised to them.
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