Bhubaneswar: The Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP) on Sunday targeted the Odisha government over delay in preparing the list of beneficiaries for Biju Pucca Ghar housing scheme and alleged that the list is being prepared on party basis.
Addressing a presser today, BJP general secretary Prithviraj Harichandan said, "The State government had initially prepared a list of 27,49,617 beneficiaries for allotment of houses under the scheme, of which 13,65,025 have been declared ineligible.”
“Subsequently, the State government set January 15 as deadline for examining the beneficiary list and preparing a fresh one. The government had promised that the beneficiary list will be uploaded in the government website and pasted on the walls of panchayat offices. Though the deadline has passed, the government is yet to come up with the final beneficiary list as it is being prepared on party basis,” he added.
Alleging that the State government has deprived the people of their legitimate rights, the saffron party leader demanded that the State government should immediately prepare the list of eligible beneficiaries and make it public.
He further alleged that the State government is adding "Biju" prefix in all schemes and demanded to know the status of implementation of the schemes. He threatened that the Odisha government will face consequences if it changes name of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.
Responding to the allegations, the BJD said the spokespersons of the BJP are making baseless and misleading statements.
“The Centre itself had approved the list of beneficiaries and now they are complaining about irregularities in the list,” said BJD spokesperson Pratap Deb.
Speaking about the sharing of fund under the housing scheme, Deb said, “The Centre cut the funding for the scheme from 90:10 to 60:40. If we add the institutional expenses, the share will become 50:50.”