BHUBANESWAR: AMID face-off between BJD and the Centre over-allotment of houses under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana - Gramin (PMAY-G), the data given by the Ministry of Rural Development in the parliament on Tuesday revealed that around 8.6 lakh houses allocated to Odisha are yet to be sanctioned to beneficiaries by the state government.
In a written reply to an unstarred question, Minister of State for Rural Development Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti stated, the Centre had allocated the target of 26,95,837 houses under PMAY-G between April 2016 and December 2022, of which 18,36,367 houses have been sanctioned by the state government and construction of 17,13,224 houses completed so far.
Odisha is among the top-five states, which have been allocated the maximum number of targets of houses under the rural housing scheme of the Centre. West Bengal topped the list with 46.18 lakh houses, followed by Bihar (38.62 lakh houses), Madhya Pradesh (37.89 lakh) and Uttar Pradesh (34.78 lakh).
The maximum 1.92 lakh houses have been completed out of 2.12 lakh houses sanctioned in Mayurbhanj district, followed by 1.35 lakh of 1.4 lakh houses in Balangir, 1.01 lakh of 1.14 lakh in Balasore, 94,063 of around one lakh in Keonjhar, 91,884 of 94,693 in Sundargarh, 91,275 of 1.01 lakh in Kalahandi and 89,500 of 94,973 houses in Bargarh during the 2016-22 period.
As per the statistics, construction of 8,35,436 houses have been completed in the state in the last three years while states like West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have completed construction of 19.24 lakh, 18.27 lakh, 13.06 lakh and 11.38 lakh houses during the period.
Among the districts in the state, the highest 1.07 lakh houses have been completed in Mayurbhanj, 71,984 in Balangir, 56,206 in Balasore, 54,712 in Kalahandi, 48,278 in Keonjhar and 47,324 in Nabarangpur during 2019-22.
The union minister attributed the delay in construction of houses to late release of central and state share from the state treasury to state nodal account of PMAY-G, delay in allotment of land to landless beneficiaries by the state and Covid-19 induced restrictions besides others. The central assistance under PMAY-G is released directly to the state/UT considering the state/UT as a unit and release of the funds to beneficiaries in various districts is done by the respective states/UTs, she added.