Complete 2 lakh houses under IAY, BPG by March: Odisha CM

Odisha Sun Times Bureau:|
Bhubaneswar, Dec 23:

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today directed all district collectors to complete construction of nearly two lakh houses under Indira Awas Yojna (IAY) and Biju Pucca Ghar (BPG) by March next.

The directive of the chief minister came during a videoconferencing at the State Secretariat here,

Earlier on November 21, chief minister had also presided over such meeting.

As per official data, over 1 lakh houses under BPG and IAY schemes have been completed and another two lakh houses are in near completion stage.

Patnaik asked the officials to engage gram sevaks, junior engineers, assistant engineers, gram rozgar sevaks, and other Panchayati Raj department officials to complete the target by March end.

Besides, the concerned district collectors were asked to submit weekly progress reports after undertaking field visits at block and district levels. They have also been directed to approach the task on a ‘mission mode’.

Among others, Panchayati Raj and Law minister Arun Sahoo, chief secretary GC Pati, Development Commissioner UN Behera, additional chief secretary to chief minister, additional chief secretary, Finance and Panchayati Raj department secretary were present.

Later in the day, the chief minister felicitated Odia mountaineer Jogabyas Bhoi .

A cash reward of Rs 2 lakh was also announced by chief minister for bringing laurels to the state.

It may be mentioned that Bhoi has set a record in scaling the Carstensz Pyramid, the highest mountain peak (4684 metre) in Australia, without an oxygen cylinder.

Apart from this, he is the first Odia and the second Indian to scale Mt Elbrus in Russia (5642 metre) in 2013.

Prior to this, he had also scaled four mountain peaks—Mt Annapurna (8091 metre) in Nepal and Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania (5865 metre), Mt Stok Kangri (6153 metre) and Mt Everest (8848 metre)— in 2011.