Bhubaneswar, May 28 (IANS) The Odisha government has set a target to construct around 19,000 km road under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) and nine lakh rural housing units under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in coming three years, it was announced on Saturday.
Chairing a review meeting on the implementation of PMGSY and PMAY, Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi said this target would be achieved, even as union rural development ministry's Additional Secretary Amarjit Sinha, who was also present, said the performance of state in rural housing and road construction has been outstanding.
The meeting deliberated on the issues relating to revised action plan for PMAY and was told that a total of 10,08,586 housing units in rural area have been completed during the period from April 2014 to May 27 this year.
Out of this, 8,49, 282 houses have been constructed under Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) and 1,59,304 houses have been constructed under Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana, said an official.
Odisha government has made incentive provisions for qualitative and speedy implementation of the projects. The beneficiaries completing the houses within four and six months are being awarded Rs.10,000 and Rs.5,000 respectively as incentive grant, the official.
During the meeting, Panchayati Raj Secretary Deo Ranjan Singh requested Sinha to release the pending central assistance of Rs.230.80 crore against IAY from 2013-14 to 2015-16 and was assured that this would be done soon.
The issues relating to inclusion of landless persons under rural housing scheme was also discussed in the meeting.
Padhi advised the panchayati raj department to implement the programme in convergence with revenue and disaster management department for allotment of homestead land to landless people. He further directed that the landless should be given priority in allotment of rural housing units.
