Bengaluru, Oct. 27: The Karnataka government will kick-start permanent rehabilitation work in the flood-hit northern districts of the state under the ‘Asare’ banner on November 1. The scheme envisages building one lakh homes using private contributions.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, coordinator for rehabilitation work Rajeev Chandrashekhar said the government had got an “overwhelming response” from corporates over its appeal for contributions. Work will begin next week.

“The programme will be in private-public partnership, and it has obtained commitments from citizens, NGOs and corporates for almost 75,000 homes. The target is 1 lakh homes for the flood-hit people of North Karnataka”, Mr Chandrashekhar said, adding, “A steering group which consists of representatives from the donor entities will meet frequently to ensure best practices and ideas are exchanged among various rehabilitation projects and locations. It will also be the forum to discuss logistical and execution issues as well as to interact with the government.’’

The steering committee currently consists of Aravind Sitaram of Cisco, Ramdas Kamath of Infosys, representatives from Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheswara temple, Adi Chunchanagiri Swamiji, Irfan Razack of realty association Credai, Karnataka, and Rani Desai of Biocon. Other donor representatives will be co-opted over time.

“Corporates such as Cisco, Biocon, ABC Trading, Kalyani Industries, Coffee Day, HAL, Infosys, GMR, Wipro, IBM, Microsoft, BEML, and individuals and religious institutions such as Anil Ambani, Veerendra Heggade of Dharmasthala and Adi Chunchanagiri Math have contributed generously and are committed to the Aasare programme.

Commitments, such as for building schools, hospitals, infrastructure have also come in generously from these institutions,’’ Mr Chandrashekhar said, adding that he was personally committed to building 1,000 homes in Bagalkot district, Badami taluk and in villages around the historic sites of Pattadakal.

While the state government will officially launch the reconstruction programme on Kannada Rajyotsava Day, November 1, Union home minister P. Chidambaram and Chief Minister Yeddyurappa
will do a joint ground-breaking ceremony on November 2.