Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith has proposed doubling the allocation in the housing and urbanisation sector compared to the previous year.
In his budget speech yesterday, Muhith proposed Tk1,886 crore for the development sectors under the Ministry of Housing and Public Works and Tk1,034 crore for the non-development sectors.
In fiscal year 2014-15, the allocation was Tk1,073 crore for development sector and the Ministry of Housing and Public Works received Tk906 crore in the revised budget.
Muhith proposed the increased allocation for implementing the integrated development plan for urbanisation in order to ensure housing for all. “Planned urbanisation is one of the main pledges of our government.”
“In addition to Detailed Area Plan for Dhaka and Khulna, and structural plans for other divisional cities, an integrated plan has also been formulated for development of tourism in Cox's Bazar, Teknaf, Saint Martin and Moheshkhali,” he said.
The minister said projects were taken to beautify Gulshan, Banani, Baridhara and Uttara lakes after implementing Hatirjheel project.
Speaking about the housing facilities for low- and middle-income people in the capital, he said construction of around 43,000 apartments in Dhaka and other divisional cities, districts and upazilas was in progress. “We are also constructing 448 apartments for employees of different sectors.”
“The government has taken steps for resolving the accommodation crisis for government and non-government employees as well as lawmakers,” he said.
Muhith said the government had taken on several programmes to establish housing funds in order to provide loans for the poor in rural areas and to construct dormitories for workers.
“We are initiating construction of a convention city as a PPP project about 25 miles from Dhaka. The city will be connected with the airport via express highway and many other development programmes will be implemented,” he said.
Besides, Muhith proposed Tk16,650 crore in allocation for the development sectors of the Local Government Division for the fiscal year 2015-16 and Tk2,222 crore for non-development sectors. In the last fiscal year, the proposed budget for the Local Government Division was Tk14,861 crore.
