The role played by the housing societies for greater develop

When considering the proliferation of low cost apartments and Homes Kerala could make rapid strides mostly due to the sincere efforts of the cooperative housing societies. Some of the major guidelines for the allotment of land to these societies are that
(i) Land is to be allotted on first-come first-serve basis, at predetermined rates, and there is to be no allotment of land in the rural areas.
(ii) Number of dwellings per acre is to be 60, although there is a proposal to increase this limit up to 100, and
(iii) Ordinarily not more than two acres are to be allotted to a society and an apartment built by a society should not have a carpet area exceeding 2,000 square feet.

Recently the Urban Development Authority has at last realized its inability to clear a massive backlog of registered applicants for allotment of houses in the capital and adopted a more realistic approach by reducing the existing land cost by Rs.400 per sq m in favor of the registered cooperative group-housing societies over the existing rate which was earlier fixed at Rs.1, 375 per sq m for cooperative group-housing societies.

The administration’s decision to contribute to the development cost from its own plan fund clearly indicates the keenness on the part of the authorities to help in dealing with the housing shortage which has undoubtedly assumed serious proportions. Earlier the Kerala administration had fixed rates inclusive of all development charges, which also included the cost of total development of land, water sewerage and electrification. But now this cost would be borne by the Administration from its own plan funds for the basic services of water, sewerage, electrification and material roads to be constructed by the Public Works Department (PWD).