Odisha: BJD MPs call on Union minister Giriraj Singh over PMAY-G plan

BHUBANESWAR: With the Centre and the state government having locked horns over the allocation of houses to Odisha under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G), the BJD MPs on Tuesday took up the issue afresh with Union rural development minister Giriraj Singh.
The move comes three days after chief minister Naveen Patnaik wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking more houses for the Cyclone Fani-hit families and the poor in the tribal and backward districts of the state.
“We have drawn the Union minister’s attention to the need for 1.84 lakh houses for the Fani-affected families under special grant and 13 lakh more houses for others from the tribal and Koraput-Balangir-Kala-handi (KBK) districts under PMAY-G,” BJD leader in Ra-jya Sabha, Prasanna Acharya, said.
Acharya said the Union minister assured them of convening a meeting of BJD MPs with officials of the Union rural development ministry and the state panchayati raj department to come out with a solution in this regard.
Earlier, the regional party had raised the issue in Rajya Sabha and had also hit the streets over it during the winter session of the state assembly. The BJD has alleged that several lakh eligible people, especially from the tribal-dominated and KBK districts, were deprived of houses under the PMAY-G as the rural development ministry closed the window of the Awaas Plus portal for applying for the same in a short period.
As the rural development ministry had allowed the states to identify the families eligible to get houses under the PMAY-G through the Awaas Plus portal by March 7, 2019, the state government could identify only 35,000 families until then owing to preparations for the general elections, network connectivity issues and Maoist violence in some pockets.
When the ministry had opened the window again only for the 14 districts ravaged by Cyclone Fani, the state government had identified 7.87 lakh more eligible families. Besides, in the remaining 16 districts that were not affected, it had identified 5.9 more lakh families.
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