Khulna: The residents of ‘Bastuhara Colony’ in Khalishpur area of Khulna city have demanded cancelation of the project for construction of flats for the landless people, approved by the National Housing Authority.

Through the project, a conspiracy is being hatched to evict them from their residences, said the residents of the colony.

A group of landless people have been living in the colony on 33 acres of land in Khalishpur Housing Estate since the independence of Bangladesh.

Recently, the National Housing Authority has taken a plan to build 1,536 flats for landless people of Khulna at Bastuhara Colony at a cost of Tk150 crore.

The project has already been approved by the Housing Authority and sent to the Ministry of Housing and Public Works.

Enamul Haque Bablu, a resident of ‘Bastuhara Colony’, said the land had been allocated for the landless people after the country’s independence following order of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, where they started living building thatched houses with sanitary latrines and constructing roads.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordered the authorities concerned to allocate the land permanently for the landless in 1998, he added.

In 2009, the Awami League government took a decision to approve the project as ‘Bangabandhu Nagar’ and distributed plots of the land among the landless people on permanent basis.

A list of 1,536 people was made for plot allotment, he added.

Bablu also said that the proposed ‘Bangabandhu Nagar’ will be built with one-room flats each 475 square feet on 14 acres of land and the owners will have to pay Tk9.76 lakh for each of the flats.

He also alleged that the project was taken for earning money by selling the rest 19 acres of land to influential people.

Noticing an advertisement of the project on a vernacular daily, the residents of the colony got so much depressed, he noted.

They cannot understand how to live in those one-room flats with 10-12 family members and how they will manage to purchase the flats paying as much as

Tk9.76 lakh for each, said Bablu.

He also demanded cancellation of the project for the interest of the landless people as they had made the place suitable for living after getting allocation from the government in 1974.

Last year, a vested quarter in the guise of landless people sent a confusing letter to the Prime Minister requesting her to build flats on the land, instead of allocating plots.

Several hundred people of ‘Bastuhara Colony’ brought out a procession protesting against the project for building flats for landless people, he added.