The Indiramma housing sche-me, a prestigious one for the Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy's government, is making tardy progress due to official apathy, corruption among lower-level staff and the insufficiency of sanctioned amount for each beneficiary due to the rising prices of raw materials. Failure in releasing funds in time reportedly due to the disinclination of beneficiaries to bribe lower-level staff for facilitating this is also cited as one of the reasons for the inordinate delay. In the district, there is a backlog of 34,545 houses from the first phase yet to be completed. The backlog of the second phase of the project stands at 69,037 houses, and even in the third phase, 1.26 lakh houses out of the sanctioned 3.14 lakh remained uncompleted. The district administration had appointed one district-level officer as in-charge for a mandal to oversee the progress of housing construction and at mandal-level, the mandal tahsildar had been appointed. However, the common complaint among people is that coordination is lacking among officials at the lower-level in timely release of raw materials. The district collector, Mr T. Krishna Babu, has been stepping up pressure on the staff concerned over the poor performance of house building. The government has promised to make extra payment of Rs 5,500 to meet the cost escalation of cement and steel. It has also promised to arrange for a loan of Rs 20,000 through banks for ST and SC beneficiaries though this has not yet been fulfilled with bankers not coming forward to issue loans. Beneficiaries are urging the district collector to intervene and facilitate smooth transactions and fast delivery of goods to complete the backlog.