BHUBANESWAR: The State Government on Thursday approved 126 new housing projects for construction of 21,894 dwelling units for economically weaker sections in 88 urban local bodies (ULBs).
The housing projects to be taken up under Odisha Urban Housing Mission was approved by the State Level Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee meeting chaired by Chief Secretary AP Padhi. Earlier, the Government had sanctioned 72,542 houses for 112 ULBs. With Thursday’s sanction, the total number of dwelling units approved under the Mission has gone up to 94,436.
Of the projects sanctioned earlier, around 16,000 houses have been completed and another 20,000 are in different stages of construction. While work orders have been issued to beneficiaries for 26,000 houses, the rest are under scrutiny, said Mission Director Suresh Chandra Dalai. He said the process for the preparation of an action plan under ‘housing for all’ scheme in all the ULBs is undertaken simultaneously along with construction of houses.
Survey work has been expedited in all the 114 ULBs and target set to complete it by end of current month. So far, around 1.6 lakh eligible beneficiaries have been identified. Under the Mission, the beneficiaries are given assistance of Rs 2 lakh each from various schemes through convergence. Around Rs1.5 lakh comes from Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) while the balance amount of Rs 50,000 is State’s contribution. Apart from this, Rs 8,000 is provided under Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) for construction of household toilet.
In addition to this, Rs 20, 000 is provided to the beneficiary by State Government as an incentive towards completion of the construction within four months of the issue of work order and `10,000 for completion of construction within six months. All the houses constructed under the Mission have been geo-tagged. Since it is beneficiary-led scheme, the monetary assistance is being released to a bank account of the beneficiary directly from the Government.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary G Mathivathanan said Odisha is the first State in the country to introduce online transfer of benefits directly to the beneficiaries’ bank accounts.