A landless sexagenarian amputee dependent on one son -- a van-puller by trade -- as the 8-member family's lone breadwinner could hardly dream of living out his days in a home to call his own, that too built on a piece of land in his own name.

The government’s allocation of low-cost houses to some 1,480 homeless families of Faridpur under the Asrayan-2 project, as promised by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to mark the Mujib Centennial, has brought smiles all around, among those who usually have very little to smile about.