Odisha: 13,000 Titli cyclone affected families to get Biju Pucca houses

BHUBANESWAR: The state government will provide pucca houses to 13000 families of 11 districts, whose homes were damaged in cyclone Titli that hit Odisha on October 11. These houses will be constructed under the Biju Pucca Ghar Yojana of the state government.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik said this on Monday while reviewing the rehabilitation issues of the cyclone affected people and directed his officials to speed up the process to issue work orders to each affected family for house construction. Government will spend Rs 176 crore for building these houses, official sources said.

In order to maintain transparency and complete the work in an efficient manner, Naveen has directed the officials to issue all the work orders to the beneficiaries on a specific date in all the blocks.

Chief minister’s office sources said both the local traders and the local self-help groups (SHGs) will be entrusted with the preparation of the construction materials meant for these houses coming up under the government scheme. Even the concerned SHGs will get extra financial incentive to carry out this work.

Sources said the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will be urged to provide livelihood facility to the cyclone-affected persons and give training to the masons for making of the constructional materials.

The unit cost under the scheme for construction of new pucca house is Rs 1.2 lakh for non-IAP districts and Rs 1.3 lakh for IAP districts. IAP stands for Integrated Action Plan to develop tribal and backward areas of left wing extremism affected states.

Cyclone Titli and subsequent flood in south Odisha had damaged thousands of houses in 11 districts of the state. As many as 65 people had died due to the natural calamity. Thousands of hectares of agriculture land had been affected in the twin disaster. c