BHUBANESWAR : Failure on part of three urban development authorities and an urban local body to take up affordable housing projects in a time-bound manner under their jurisdictions has resulted in cancellation of seven projects under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban).
As per sources, Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA), Cuttack Development Authority (CDA), Rourkela Development Authority (RDA) and Jatni Municipality have failed to take up construction of about 3,400 affordable dwelling units sanctioned by the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC) under two verticals - Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) and In-situ Slum Redevelopment (ISSR) - of PMAY (U) between 2017 and 2021.
However, since PMAY (U) has been closed in the state, these urban bodies have now been asked to submit cancellation proposal for the same within 15 days. While the AHP under PMAY (U) provided central assistance to economically weaker sections (EWS) beneficiaries for owning a pucca house, the ISSR facilitated redevelopment of slums using land as a resource and provided houses to eligible slum dwellers through private investment.
Sources in the Odisha Urban Housing Mission (OUHM), the nodal agency for implementation of PMAY (U) in the state, said the 3,400 affordable housing units were supposed to be taken up by three development authorities and Jatni Municipality under seven projects - six AHP and one ISSR project. While the BDA was supposed to take up an ISSR project with 400 dwelling units at VSS Nagar, CDA was to take up two separate AHP projects of 288 EWS units and 540 dwelling units at Nimpur and Tulasipur respectively.
Similarly, RDA was entrusted to execute three AHP projects for construction of 420 dwelling units at Pradhanpali and Basanti Colony, 800 EWS houses at Chhend and another 360 affordable housing units near Chamber of Commerce at Chhend. Meanwhile, the Jatni Municipality had also been granted an AHP project to construct 600 affordable houses at Ramachandrapur and Sandapur.
OUHM officials said the project was sanctioned long back, between 2017 and 2021, under PMAY (U) but couldn’t be executed by the development agencies till date.
“As PMAY (U) has now been closed and PMAY (U) 2.0 rolled out in the state, these urban bodies have now been asked to submit the cancellation proposals within a fortnight,” an official from the OUHM said. He said, in case there is a fresh demand for affordable houses under AHP vertical in the jurisdictions of these urban bodies, they will have to take necessary steps to prepare plan under PMAY (U) 2.0 and follow procedure as per its guidelines.