Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi reviewed the progress of the Odisha Urban Housing Mission in a State Level Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee meeting here on Thursday.
Secretary Housing and Urban Development G Mathivathanan outlined the issues and Director Odisha Urban Housing Mission Dr Suresh Chandra Dalai presented the updates for discussion.
Considering the EWS housing project proposals submitted by ULBs, Padhi approved 126 new projects for 88 urban bodies. A total number of 21,894 dwellings would be constructed under these projects. Further, Chief Secretary Padhi directed the Mission to prepare Housing for All plan for the urban poor.
A target was set to complete the survey for the purpose by end of this year. The Chief Secretary also advised the Housing and Urban Development Department to include bath facility along with the toilet for dwelling units under the scheme.
Mathivathanan appraised that following Government instructions, third party quality monitoring of the implementation is being regularly undertaken in various ULBS. So far, 118 visits have been made by the third party and no serious irregularities have been found with regard to selection of beneficiaries and quality of construction of the houses.
All the houses constructed under the Mission have also been geo-tagged. Since the scheme is beneficiary- led, the monetary assistance is being released to bank account of the beneficiary directly from the Government. Vathanan further appraised that Odisha was the first State in the country in introducing online transfer of benefits directly to the beneficiaries.
Earlier, 72,542 dwelling units were sanctioned for 112 ULBs. Out of this around 16,000 houses have been completed as of now. Another 20,000 houses are in different stages of completion. Other 26,000 houses have been taken up for construction and balance are in process of scrutiny. With today’s sanction, total number of dwelling units sanctioned under the Mission goes up to 94,436 in 112 ULBs.
Mission Director Dr Dalai said the process for preparation of Housing for All Action Plan in all the ULBs is being undertaken simultaneously along with construction of houses. Survey work has been expedited in all the 114 ULBs. So far, around 1.6 lakh eligible beneficiaries have been identified. Target was set to complete the survey by end of current month.