BHUBANESWAR: Odisha government on Tuesday said the state lost nearly 6.58 lakh housing units under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) in the last eight years and blamed the previous BJD regime for it.
Replying to a question from BJP MLA Manas Dutta, Panchayati Raj and Drinking Water Minister Rabi Narayan Naik informed the Assembly that the previous government failed to submit the list of beneficiaries to the Centre in time from 2016 to 2024. As a result, the state lost central assistance for 6,57,945 PMAY-G houses during this period.
The minister said the central government has so far sanctioned over 42.18 lakh houses to the state out of which more than 36.57 lakh units have been constructed. Over 5.27 lakh housing units are under construction. Work on 32,913 sanctioned houses is yet to start and 1,26,719 applications are pending for approval.
After the outbreak of Covid-19, the then government could not prepare a final list of PMAY beneficiaries till the end of 2022-23 financial year leading to protest from the BJP over alleged irregularities in beneficiary selection.
Responding to a separate query from BJD MLA Dhruba Charan Sahu, Naik who is also the Minister for Rural Development, said 8,300 villages of the state have no all-weather connectivity. Of the 59,971 villages in the state, all-weather connectivity has been provided to 51,671 villages under PMGSY. Road connectivity programme taken up for 1,226 villages under the state programme of the previous government has been completed.