Finance ministry signs MoU with NBCC for housing project

NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry and NBCC on Friday signed a pact for construction of a housing project near Connaught Place for officers of the Indian Economic Service (IES).

The housing project would be built on an area of 3,519 square metre at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg. As many as 90 flats would be built in a single tower which would have 27 or 28 floors, NBCC CMD Anoop Kumar Mittal said.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the project was signed between Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) and National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC).

Speaking on the occasion, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the MoU marks the starting point of construction.

“Normally, lands are available within reasonable distance and this is one freak case where land was available in the heart of the city. It was unthinkable in 2017 to think of land being available in Connaught Place for housing because Connaught Place is not an area which anybody now associates for residential living,” he said.

The housing project comes amidst acute shortage of houses under ‘government general pool accommodation’, particularly for junior-level officers, a finance ministry statement said.

“I firmly believe Delhi still has a lot of space belonging to the government which is under-utilised or unutilised, for which government housing in future pipeline is going to be there,” Jaitley noted.

PTI