The West Bengal government today said they would provide 26 per cent reservation to minorities in housing projects, hence claiming to become the first Indian state to do so.
"We will give 26 per cent reservation to minorities in our housing projects for the LIG (Lower Income Group) and MIG (Middle Income Group) sectors. With this, we will become the first state in the country to have such reservation," state Urban Development Minister Asok Bhattacharjee told reporters here. Out of the two lakh houses planned to be built under the Basic Service for Urban Poor (BASUP) project, 60,000 have already been constructed, he said. Meanwhile, the state government also plans to bring an plan equivalent of the NREGA scheme for urban areas, he added.
"Even in the urban areas, poverty is there. To tackle that, we want to bring a NREGA kind of scheme in the urban areas," he said.
