Odisha CM requests PM to allocate 14.84 lakh houses

Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allocate 14.84 lakh houses for cyclone Fani hit people and non-Fani affected districts in the state.

In a letter to the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister sought 1.84 lakh houses for cyclone Fani affected families under PMAY (G) and 13 lakh houses for non-Fani affected districts basically comprising of tribal districts and KBK districts.

Thanking the Prime Minister for sanctioning 8.17 Lakh PMAY(G) houses to Odisha, Patnaik drew his attention to the woes of many families of KBK and tribal-dominated districts of the State and many families who have lost their houses in cyclone Fani and sought the kind intervention of the Prime Minister.

The Chief Minister said that the Union Ministry of Rural Development allowed identification of eligible left out families through Awaas+ by 07 March 2019.

But the State could identify only 35 thousand families within this stipulated period because of pre-occupation of Government machinery in preparatory work for General Elections-2019, network connectivity issues, and LWE violence in some pockets of State, he said.

When MoRD opened Awaas+ window for only the 14 districts affected by cyclone Fani, another 7.87 lakh families were identified. Odisha government conducted identification through State developed RH portal and found 5.09 lakh families in 16 districts not affected by cyclone Fani are also eligible.

It may be mentioned that these are predominantly tribal districts and KBK districts of the state.

These families may be covered against PMAY(G) target by migrating their data from RH portal to PWL of PMAY(G), the CM requested.

Reminding the Prime Minister’s commitment during May 2019 to allot 5 lakh PMAY-G (Special) houses to Fani affected families, the Chief Minister said that there are 1.84 lakh families whose houses got damaged by cyclone Fani and they are not otherwise entitled for availing normal PMAY(G) houses.

So, these families may be considered for PMAY-G (Special) houses waiving the pre-condition of their names to be in PWL of PMAY (G), the CM demanded.

Patnaik said that there might be some more eligible families  missed out during the survey through Awaas+ and RH portal.

 Thus the CM has sought kind intervention of the Prime minister to sanction 1.84 Lakh PMAY-G (Special) houses to the cyclone FANI affected families, to migrate 5.09 lakh data from the RH portal to PWL of PMAY(G) and to allow opening of Awaas+ window for the entire State for a period of one month.

This will be a step towards achieving shelter security to all, the CM hoped.

The CM also referred to the rejection by MORD on the request made on July 5 this year in this regard.