Not to mention of its frail fiscal condition. Delayed loan repayments and apathetic officials that be, the Board has been left with a whopping debt of Rs 40.65 crore.

Board's new chairman Jitendra Sukhadia conceded during an interview that to run the Board is a challenge. For four years, construction activities have come to a halt as the beneficiaries' failure to repay loans, he says. Adding to its woes is the lack of its own budget, with the State Government guaranteeing and repaying loans to the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDCO).

The show is run by the meagre percentage it gets out of constructing houses. The Board has more staff which eat into its budget. Sukhadia plans to transfer them to other government bodies.

Sukhadia proposes to recover loans by a determined campaign, and will also make a survey of existing houses built by the Board. He said a survey had been necessitated that in 45 per cent cases, the real beneficiaries have either rented out the houses or availed benefits more than once.

Tenants will be evicted if the original beneficiaries do not have ownership documents while loan defaulters would be given relaxations. Sukhadia plans to computerise records to plug the loopholes. He aims to make the Board self-sufficient, which could happen only if construction of houses was resumed on a war-footing and reserved lands be acquired.

On priority is the task to give away 1,200 houses in Surat and Ahmedabad to the beneficiaries. A resolution adopted during the Congress rule to merge the Board with the Gujarat Housing Board (GHB) is learnt to have hit the morale of the Board officers. He does not agree with the merger.

He said plans are also afoot to rehabilitate over 650 slum units in Navsari while a survey of slums in Rajkot and Ahmedabad Urban Development Authority (AUDA) is in progress. The idea is to later provide civic amenities at existing sites or shift them. Rajkot is among the four cities of India to have been selected by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to develop slums, he said.

The Board plans setting up of three settlements in Surat with the help of the Surat Municipal Corporation and the Surat Urban Development Authority. He said the Board would take up work as an agency for 50,000 houses to be constructed for economically weaker sections (EWS).

Sukhadia says all slum pockets, authorised or unauthorised, should be provided all basic civic amenities and local councillors, ward committees and politicians should take a lead.