1,500 families rehabilitated under Ashrayan project

NATORE, Jan 19: About 1,500 distressed families here have so far been rehabilitated in 15 cluster housing complexes under Ashrayan project.

Another plan is also afoot to construct 50 more housing complexes for the rehabilitation of 5,000 more destitute families.

The destitute families include men who lost land by river erosion and women rejected by their husbands. Each cluster housing complex was built on 3.35 acres of Khas lands with a pond on 1.6 acres of land, four sanitary latrines, two tubewells and a community centre at Mohesha, Arjunpara, Chatiangacha and Kazlahar villages by Bangladesh Army's Engineering corps under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister's Secretariat.

In addition 4,000 wood and fruit saplings were planted on the compound of each housing complex. Non-refundable and non-transferrable deeds have been handed over to the families who have taken shelter in the housing complexes.

The government, keeping in view the increasing number of people rendered homeless by the river erosion and the women rendered destitute by rejection of their husbands, has taken up another plan for their rehabilitation.

The Deputy Commissioner of Natore told The Daily Star that the district administration had sent a proposal to the Prime Minister with an appeal to construct 50 more housing complexes for the rehabilitation of 5,000 families.

The DC also said that khas land for this purpose had been acquired and preliminary arrangements had ben completed.

The work on construction is expected to be started soon.

Meanwhile, a total of 26,000 distressed men and women of 52 union parisads and two municipalities in the district have been brought under a special programme of Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF).

Each man will get 10 kgs of rice per month.

Fazlul Haque, DRRO said that the government had allocated 780 tons of rice provided by the World Food Programme (WFP) to execute the special VGF programme.