Kochi: Residents of Santhipuram colony at Karanakodam in Kochi will realise their dream of living in a safe and secure home soon, thanks to a project which will be implemented by the City Corporation.

“The local body will build houses for 197 families residing in the colony. Four houses will come up on every three cents of the colony land, which measures a total of two and a quarter acres,” said Mayor M Anil Kumar.

“The tender procedures for construction will start immediately,” he added. The Corporation is planning to start the work before the notification for the local body election later this year.

Currently, residents of Santhipuram colony, located in the heart of the city, stay in temporary sheds built around three-quarters of a cent of land more than 40 years ago. With no maintenance, the dilapidated sheds could collapse anytime. Incidentally, the residents had earlier received title deeds for the three-quarter-cent plots they possess.

An amount of ₹4 lakh was allotted to each of the 197 families residing in the colony under the Life Mission project to build new houses in 2023. However, this amount was insufficient to construct a house and space shortage also proved a hurdle.

“Subsequently, we decided to construct houses considering the entire colony as a single plot and dividing it into various blocks,” said councillor George Nanat, who took the initiative to implement the project.

The master plan for the project was prepared by the Azaadi group. Each house will cost ₹10 lakh, of which ₹4 lakh will be met by the Life project and the rest made available from CSR funding. While BPCL has already sanctioned ₹1 crore, Marina One Project has allotted ₹50 lakh as its CSR contribution.

Meanwhile, the city corporation has urged the state government to extend the December 2025 deadline to start construction of the project under the Pradhan Mantri Yojana-Life Mission, as a delay in this regard could lead to the lapse of ₹4 lakh for each beneficiary.

As part of the project implementation, the corporation has also constituted a committee of beneficiaries. “Most of the colony residents have secured loans from banks pledging their title deeds. We are engaged in discussions to ensure that legal issues don’t come up during construction because of this,” said the councillor.