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Fufilling the commitment made in the election manifesto of ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD), the state government today rolled out a new scheme, ‘Biju Pucca Ghara Yojana’, which aims to provide pucca houses for the people residing in the rural areas.
Announcing the scheme, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said, “the new scheme of Biju Pucca Ghara is being launched with the objective of converting all the kuchha houses in rural areas into pucca houses.”
The existing Mo Kudia scheme of the state government will be subsumed into this new scheme.
The annual budget provision for the Biju Pucca Ghara Yojana will be enhanced nearly ten fold from the present Rs 330 crore to around Rs 3,000 crore in a phased manner, he added. Houses under the new scheme will be allotted in the name of women members in the family, official sources said.
Required human resource both at the gram panchayat and block levels will be deployed for implementing the scheme, the Chief Minister said.
The decision to convert the kuchha houses into pucca ones was taken at a meeting held at the state secretariat, here today. The meeting, among others, was attended by panchayati raj minister, Arun Sahu, chief secretary Gokul Chandra Pati, development commissioner, Aditya Prasad Padhee.
The state government had launched Mo Kudia scheme in 2008-09. As per the earlier scheme, the rural households, who did not figure in the BPL (below poverty line) list, but are otherwise genuinely poor, were eligible for a house in the joint name of husband and spouse.
Preferences, under Mo Kudia scheme, were given to the poor women in distress, physically challenged (over 40 per cent disability), mentally challenged, victims of domestic violence, destitute widows, women headed households, adult orphans staying in government registered institutions, victims of leprosy and AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), among others.
