BJP didn't give single house in Karnataka, Cong giving 42,345 this year: Minister Zameer Ahmed Khan

Hubballi (Karnataka) [India], November 3 (ANI): Karnataka Minister B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan claimed the BJP government in the State did not sanction a single house as it costs Rs 7.5 lakh to build a house.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, Khan said that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has approved 42,345 houses out of the 1,80,000 this year.
He said, "During the previous government, when Congress was in power, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah sanctioned these houses. After that, the BJP government came, the coalition government came, but neither a single house was sanctioned nor a single house was given. The reason is that it costs Rs 7.5 lakh to build a house."
Slamming the BJP, he added that the Central and state governments provided Rs 1.5 lakh each, and the poor had to pay the remaining Rs 4.5 lakh for the house. He claimed that only Rs 300 crore had been sanctioned out of the required Rs 7,400 crore in the last ten years.
Karnataka Minister said, "So, Rs 1.5 lakh were given by the central government and Rs 1.5 lakh by the state government. How could a poor man pay the remaining Rs 4.5 lakh from their own pocket? Total beneficiary payment of around 1 lakh 80 thousand houses should have been Rs 7,400 crores in ten years. But only Rs 300 crores were given.
"So we requested the CM. He said that he would give this money from the government. 42,345 houses are being given this year," he added.
Meanwhile, he took a dig at the BJP for failing to provide housing for the people, while the current Congress-led government sanctions housing projects despite a cash crunch amid the Karnataka government implementing its five guarantees.
"During Siddaramaiah's previous term as Chief Minister, over one lakh houses were built for the people. But the BJP government did not construct even a single house when they were in power," Zameer Ahmad said while speaking to reporters here.
According to the minister, CM Siddaramaiah has assured that funds for multiple projects will be distributed by December 2026.
Speaking about ongoing welfare projects, the Minister said, "Nearly Rs 60,000 crore are being spent on guarantee schemes. Despite this financial strain, I personally appealed to the Chief Minister to allocate funds for housing projects. Even with all the difficulties, he assured support and released 900 crore rupees."
In 2024, the proposal was placed before the Cabinet, approved, and 500 crore rupees were released. With those funds, we completed 36,790 houses last year, and this year we are working to provide 42,000 more.
Recently, the Karnataka Housing Board proposed a 772-acre housing project, Devannahalli. Similarly, the state government has released plans for multiple other futuristic cities in the state, including KWIN City, SWIFT City, AI City, and Quantum City.
In a major push for distributing more houses to specific groups, the Karnataka cabinet in July also hiked the quota for minority communities in housing schemes from 10 per cent to 15 per cent. (ANI)