LIT Chairman completes year in office, lists achievements

Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, July 13

On the completion of first year as the Ludhiana Improvement Trust (LIT) Chairman Raman Balasubramanium said during the year Rs 45 crore revenue was generated from the sale of properties through e-auctions, recovery of arrears towards cost of land/property, enhancement charges and non-construction fee. The LIT had launched development projects in the city worth Rs 42 crore of which some were near completion while others are in the pipeline.

While interacting with mediapersons today, he said in addition to the routine maintenance works for urban infrastructure such as carpeting of roads, installation of LED lights and development of parks/green belts in the Trust colonies, an ambitious project of development of a leisure valley along Sidhwan Canal was near completion. Tenders for development of a similar leisure valley in Haibowal had been floated and project for another leisure valley in Ludhiana East was also being taken in hand.

Outlining the road map for the future, the LIT Chairman said to meet the soaring demand and acute shortage of affordable houses, a plan had been formulated to build at least 50,000 such houses for migrants, other workers and those living in shanties. “We plan to construct these houses in close vicinity to the work place of workers or at such locations where access to public transport is easy,” he added.

Balasubramanium further stated that yet another housing project had been conceived to develop a colony in an area of 200 to 500 acres outside the city limits under the Town Extension Plan, which again would be an endeavour towards meeting the need for housing.

He reiterated that the erstwhile Atal Apartments, a high-rise housing scheme proposed to be constructed in Shaheed Karnail Singh Nagar on Pakhowal Road here, had been scrapped by the state government. The Trust was thinking in terms of building MIG flats instead keeping the basic design of the scheme intact. “Our efforts will be to keep the socio-economic profile of the owners homogeneous,” he said.

The chairman claimed that several steps had been taken to put an end to corruption and to improve the work culture in the LIT. Plans were afoot for complete digitisation of records expected to be achieved within next year.