Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday handed over the keys of 5,000 houses built under the government's Bir Nibash Project for underprivileged freedom fighters.

The prime minister handed over the keys joining virtually a programme at Osmani Memorial Auditorium organised by Liberation War Affairs Ministry with its Minister AKM Mozammel Huq in the chair. She joined from her official residence Ganabhaban.

The houses are being given to the valiant independence heroes as gift from the PM Hasina announced on the occasion of the Mujib Borsho – the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – and the celebrations of 50 years of Bangladesh's 1971 independence.

The Tk4,122-cr project - house construction for poor freedom fighters - was approved by the Ecnec on March 21 last year.

Under the project 30,000 “Bir Nibash” (houses) for poor freedom fighters, Birangana (women freedom fighters), widows and children of martyred and late freedom fighters will be built for their socioeconomic uplift.

Named as Bir Nibas, the 635-square-foot-houses, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room and a kitchen, were built for poor freedom fighters on their family homesteads.

This project is an initiative of PM Hasina seeking to uplift the socio-economic status of poverty-stricken freedom fighters, widows and children of late heroic freedom fighters.

Construction of each house costs Tk14,10,382, according to official sources.

The deputy commissioners of Narail, Madaripur, Gopalganj, Gazipur and Kishoreganj, on behalf of the prime minister handed over the keys in their respective areas.