LALMONIRHAT, Jun 11, 2024 (BSS) – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today handed over 1,623 houses to landless and homeless families here as the gift of upcoming Eid-ul-Adha under the second stage of the fifth phase of Ashrayan-2 Prakalpa and declared the district free of landless and homeless families.

The premier handed over the homes along with ownership documents to the beneficiaries while she was distributing 18,566 houses among homeless and landless families across the country this morning through videoconferencing from her official residence Ganabhaban in Dhaka, connecting to Kaliganj upazila of Lalmonirhat, Eidgaon upazila of Cox’s Bazar and Char Fashion upazila of Bhola.

Former minister Nuruzzaman Ahmed, MP, Advocate Motiar Rahman, MP, Rangpur Divisional Commissioner Md Zakir Hossain, Lalmonirhat Deputy Commissioner (DC) Mohammad Ullah and Awami League (AL) Central Working Committee Member Advocate Safura Begum were present at the Lamonirhat end.

In addition to distributing houses, Sheikh Hasina declared 70 more upazilas, including all upazilas of 26 districts, free of landlessness and homelessness people.

With these new declarations, the total number of landless and homeless-free districts stood at 58 while the number of upazilas rose to 464 across the country.

Through the videoconferencing, the prime minister today distributed 1,623 houses in Lalmonirhat, 261 in Cox’s Bazar and 1,234 in Bhola districts under her Ashrayan-2 Prakalpa, which is dubbed as the ‘Sheikh Hasina Model for Inclusive Development’.

So far, 5,240 homeless and landless families got houses as gift from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina under the Ashrayan project in the district.

Under the project, each of the families was given a semi-pucca house on two decimals of land with ownership jointly granted to both husband and wife. Each of the houses is consist of two bedrooms, one kitchen, one toilet and a veranda.

According to the project details, a total of 266,012 landless and homeless families were rehabilitated in the first, second, third, fourth and the first stage of the fifth phases of the Ashrayan-2 Prakalpa.

Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman introduced the rehabilitation programme for homeless people in 1972.

Following the footprints of Bangabandhu, her daughter Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina took the initiative to provide ownership of houses and lands to the homeless and landless people through the Ashrayan project in 1997.

Under the Ashrayan project, a total of 771,301 families have been rehabilitated so far since 1997. The number of rehabilitated people is 3,856,505 (estimated as five persons in a family).

So far 4,340,000 people of 867,904 landless and homeless families have been rehabilitated under the Ashrayan and other programmes across the country while 2,910,265 people of 582,053 landless and homeless people have been rehabilitated under the Ashrayan Prakalpa only, the document said.