634 new homes ready for 6,384 families living along Klong Prem Prachakorn
The government project to build homes for squatters living along the Klong Prem Prachakorn canal is progressing smoothly and some 15.77% is either completed or on its way to completion.
Government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri said new homes for 1,007 families in 10 communities along the canal are either being built, ready to be built or were completed at the end of October.
The progress of the project along the canal, which runs through Pathum Thani and Bangkok, is as follows:
• 634 finished houses: 356 in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district and 88 in Lak Si district, 190 in Tambon Lak Hok in Pathum Thani’s Muang district. This constitutes 9.93% of the project.
• 352 houses underway: 133 in Chatuchak, 71 in Lak Si, 120 in Don Mueang district and 28 in Lak Hok. This constitutes 5.51% of the project.
• 21 houses ready to be built: 7 in Lak Si and 14 in Don Mueang or 0.33% of the project.
The project, which was given Cabinet approval on April 9, 2019, aims to do away with the untidy, shaky wooden shacks that blocked and slowed the canal’s flow. Houses encroaching on the canal will be demolished to make way for two-storey concrete houses along the canal’s banks instead.
Anucha said the project aims to provide permanent homes to people living in 38 communities in four districts of Bangkok and Pathum Thani, namely 32 in Don Mueang, Lak Si and Chatuchak and six in Tambon Lak Hok in Pathum Thani’s Muang district.
The project is being organised in cooperation with the Community Organisation’s Development Institute, the Social Development and Human Security Ministry and other relevant government agencies.
He said 6,340 families have agreed to move into new homes, though the remainder have yet to agree.
Of the families that agreed:
• 621 live in five communities in Chatuchak
• 2,248 in 13 communities in Lak Si
• 2,542 in 14 communities in Don Mueang
• 929 in six communities in Lak Hok.
Once the project is completed, the families will be able to live in new homes while the canal will be able to drain floods at its full capacity, the spokesman said.
