BHUBANESWAR: As the State Government is all set to initiate construction of four lakh houses in rural areas under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), BJP on Monday accused the ruling BJD of hijacking Central scheme by renaming it as Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana (BPGY).
“The Centre has sanctioned Rs 4,820 crore in 2019-20 for rural housing in the State under PMAY while State Government has not made any budgetary provision under BPGY. However, the advertisements released by Panchayati Raj Department to media for these housing projects contain the logo of BPGY and picture of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik,” said State BJP secretary Lekhasri Samantsinghar.
The BJD government has mastered the art of how to appropriate the Central schemes as it is scared that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will take all the credit for the developmental works in the State, she remarked.
This is another attempt by the BJD to mislead the people. It had done similar mischief before the 2019 general elections by launching an advertising blitzkrieg in the mass media claiming that the government had constructed 20 lakh houses in Odisha in five years.
She said the BJP has successfully exposed the BJD over its claims of providing cheaper rice at Re 1-a-kg by launching a door-to-door campaign. Now, the party will do the same thing to remove the facade of this Government.
Coming down heavily on the BJD for failure to keep its promise given to the people before 2014 election, Lekhasri said the party had promised to convert all kuchcha houses to pucca ones and provide homestead land to the landless.
More than 30 lakh families of the State are still living in kutcha houses, she said. Giving details of financial assistance given by the Centre for rural housing under ‘Housing for All by 2022’, the BJP leader said the BJD has so far constructed 3.77 lakh out of the 20 lakh houses constructed in the State by 2018-19 end.
The Chief Minister will lay the foundation for the new housing projects sanctioned in favour of beneficiaries across the State through video-conference from Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, demand survey has been conducted in all the districts to register the name of all those eligible persons who do no figure in the list of beneficiaries as per the 2011 socio-economic caste census (SECC).