PTI

Bangalore, Jan 20: Amidst a boycott by opposition BJP and JD(S) rebels, Karnataka governor T N Chaturvedi on Thursday said the Congress-JD(S) government would build four lakh houses and operationalise the Bangalore International Airport by 2008.

"To provide assistance to all persons living Below Poverty Line, the government has completed 2.14 lakh incomplete houses and sanctioned another 2.75 lakh this year. It is proposed to complete another four lakh houses during the year," he said in his address to the joint session of the state legislature.

Appealing to slogan-shouting JD(U) members to "hear the programmes being outlined for the people", Chaturvedi said it has been decided to establish tele-medicine network in 14 districts, apart from 13 where the facility has already been established.

In his 40-minute address to the house, which saw the opposition benches empty, as also a majority in the ruling side, in the wake of the boycott declared by the aspiring new coalition partners -  JD(S) and BJP, Chaturvedi said the government proposed to set up 800 Village TeleCentres under public private partnership to make government services available to the common man at the village level.

The Integrated Citizen Centres, established under project "Bangalore One", to provide services to citizens in the city would be extended to cover major cities like Mysore, Hubli-Dharwad, Belgaum and Mangalore, he said.