Rajuk to offer plot, flat in Jhilmil project

The government will call for fresh applications for the Jhilmil Residential Project within a few months in order to ease the housing shortage in Dhaka.
State Minister of Housing and Public Works Abdul Mannan Khan told the Daily Star recently that a meeting will be held before finalising the date for calling applications.
Rajuk Chairman Nurul Huda said a committee is preparing guidelines for distributing the plots and flats of the project.
Jhilmil Project Director Md Anwar Hossain said the first phase will be constructed on 381 acres and the second phase will be constructed on 1,150 acres.
A Rajuk spokesperson said that the housing project was initiated in 1997 to ease the housing shortage in the capital.
The project will be located beside the Dhaka-Mawa Highway in Suvadda, Chunkatia and Teghria Mouja's low-land areas of Keraniganj.
The project is five kilometres away from zero point in the capital.
Anwar said that 65 per cent of the land development work for phase one is already complete and the rest will be completed by the end of the year.
He said the first phase is estimated to cost Tk 335 crore and the second phase will cost Tk 3,082 crore.
Seventy-seven plots are 2.5 katha, 1,234 plots are three katha, 144 plots are five katha, 108 plots are 7.5 katha and nine plots are larger than 7.5 katha.
The project director said there will also be 9,224 flats constructed for the project and a separate project proposal has already been prepared for it.
He said the project proposal for the second phase was submitted to the ministry for approval in January, while the project proposal to construct 9,224 flats was submitted to the ministry last December.
Among the 9,224 flats being built for phase one, 3,284 will be between 1,001 to 1,200 square feet; 4,377 flats will be between 801 to 1,000 square feet and 1,563 flats will be between 600 to 800 square feet.
Rajuk also plans to construct 3,000 more plots and 30,000 flats in the second phase.
The project director said, "We intend to extend the time-frame of the project for two years as it is scheduled to be finished by 2010."
According to the Jhilmil project schedule, Rajuk was supposed to complete the project between 1997 and 2001 and it has been granted two time extensions already.
In 2001 and 2002 Rajuk invited fresh applications for the allotments but no satisfactory responses were received.
An official said that Rajuk allotted 525 plots amongst those who applied, but after it failed to hand over the plots, many applicants withdrew their deposits.
There are approximately 250 people with plots allotted to them.