BHUBANESWAR: Irked over the delay in operationalisation of rental housing complexes (RHCs) developed for migrant construction workers in urban areas of the state, the Odisha government has asked the ULBs concerned to submit an action plan for making these facilities functional at the earliest.
The Odisha Urban Housing Mission (OUHM) under the Housing and Urban Development (H&UD) department has asked four municipal corporations of Bhubaneswar, Berhampur, Rourkela and Sambalpur besides Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Jharsuguda and Paradip municipalities to submit the current status of these RHCs and detailed action plan for their operationalisation.
Sources in the H&UD department said a total 14 RHCs having a combined capacity of 1,150 beds have been set up in 10 ULBs. However, only three including one RHC with 200 beds at the Social Equity Centre at Kharavela Nagar, developed by the Bhubaneswar Smart City Limited (BSCL), has been made functional. The rest 11 projects, work of which has already been completed, are lying unused in eight ULBs.
According to OUHM reports, construction of six RHCs having 100 beds each at Ghatikia in Bhubaneswar, New Gosaninuagaon and Khadasingh Mouza in Berhampur, Chhend in Rourkela and Burla town and Lambadunguri in Sambalpur have already been constructed and handed over to the ULBs concerned but are yet to be made operational.
One 50-bed RHC in Paradip municipality, handed over to the chief medical officer during Covid-19 pandemic, and four such complexes in Jajpur, Jharsuguda and Dhenkanal have not been made functional even after completion of work.
The RHC project, one of the key initiatives of the H&UD and Labour & ESI departments, was implemented in the previous BJD government’s regime. Taken up four years back, its main objective was to offer temporary and affordable housing facility on a rental basis to construction workers migrating to different urban areas and improve the human development index (HDI) as well as the ambience of cities and towns of the state.