LIVE TV
Odisha
Recommended Stories
Bhubaneswar: The BJD-led State government has come under fire over its claim of constructing 17 lakh houses under Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana in the State. While hoardings have been put up in Cuttack and Bhubaneswar claiming that 17 lakh houses have been constructed between 2014 and 2018, the Panchayati Raj department Secretary, Deoranjan Kumar Singh has said that the number includes houses built under various schemes.
"The total number of houses built by the State government is 18, 90,000 and it includes houses constructed under Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana (BPGY), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), Indira Awas Yojana (IAY)," the Panchayati Raj department secretary said.
Reacting to Singh’s comments, BJP spokesperson Golak Mohapatra accused the State government of spreading lies.
“There is no doubt that this government has been constantly lying. We had already highlighted the discrepancies in BPGY scheme earlier,” Mohapatra said.
Responding to the allegations, BJD spokesperson Samir Das said, “Government has never mentioned about Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana anywhere. We had promised to build 25 lakh houses, out of which 17 lakh houses have been built.”
According to the data published on the official website of Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water Department, the State government has till now constructed 2,83, 897 houses under BPGY, BPGY(Mining) & NSPGY schemes and under IAY and PMAY-G schemes, 16,08,882 houses have been built.
The target is to construct 7 lakh houses this year under a new model in hilly and backward areas for which the State government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Roorkee-based CSIR-CBRI.
“Different designs of houses have been modelled which will be helpful in building pucca houses in hilly and tribal areas. There will be no problem in getting materials for such houses,” Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi said.
While the Centre has set a target of completing 9.92 lakh houses under PMAY within 3 years, for the state government, only 4.96 lakh houses have been built till now. The deadline will end in December this year.
On the other hand Panchayati Raj Department has said the work which was pending due to rain will be completed by March 2019.
