Bhubaneswar: Providing people-centric urban governance and improving the liveability of the cities has been the priorities of the Odisha Government led by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. The Urban Transformative journey has experienced significant strides in recent years. To take these further, Rs 7914 crore is provisioned in the Budget 2023-24 for Housing & Urban Development Department, to further enhance the liveability of the urban areas by providing all advanced civic amenities across all wards in all 115 Urban Local Bodies of the state. The impact in transforming the lives is evident from the quantum jump in the budgetary allocation for the urban development which has gone 28 times from Rs 276 crore in FY 2000-2001 to Rs 7914 crore in FY 2023- 2024, the Housing & Urban Development Department (HUDD) said on Thursday.
Housing & Urban Development Minister Usha Devi and Principal Secretary of Housing & Urban Development Department G Mathi Vathanan have addressed the press here to highlight the major provisions of the Budget 2023-24 for the Department.
The key thrust areas in this year’s budget are Urban Water Supply with Rs 2400 crore, Inclusive Urban Infrastructure Rs 2345 crore, Decentralised Sanitation & Drainage Management Rs 1307 crore and for Urban Housing Rs 609 crore.
It is the dream of the Chief Minister to provide safe and clean drinking water through tap water house connection to every household; so far 85 cities including all five corporations namely Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur, Sambalpur & Rourkela have achieved tap connection to 100% households and the remaining 30 cities would achieve this by December 2023, the Department said in a press note.
Drink from Tap mission a 5T initiative is implemented to bring the water supply service standards on par with international cities like New York, Tokyo, Singapore and London. Puri & Gopalpur have become India’s 1st and 2nd cities to achieve this distinction and the implementation is going on in another 21 cities which will be completed by March 2024 benefiting 40 lakhs urban population. Execution of Drink from tap mission will be completed in Berhampur by June 2023 & in the remaining cities including Bhubaneswar, Cuttack & Rourkela by December 2023. An amount of Rs 2400 crore is provisioned for the Urban Water Sector for FY 2023-24. WATCO bagged the distinction of Global Water Leader Award in the Global Water Summit held in Spain in 2022, Odisha has achieved the distinction of being the 1st state in the country to provide directly drinkable water at the consumer Taps round the clock, it added.
Recognizing the crucial role of slum dwellers in building and sustaining cities, Odisha is implementing JAGA Mission, the World’s largest slum land rights and upgradation programme, this government is implementing JAGA mission to provide Land Rights and transform the slums to Adarsh colonies. CM Naveen Patnaik’s thought is “We Value People More than Land” and eviction is not the way but empowerment to deal with the slum issues So far more than 1.73 lakhs slum families are granted with land right certificates and another 1 lakhs families living in the five Municipal Corporation, Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur, Rourkela and Sambalpur will be issued Land Right Certificates by December 2023. To improve the liveability of slum dwellers, slums are transformed into Adarsh Colonies with all infrastructure, amenities and services at par with rest of the cities. So far 725 slums are upgraded as Adarsh Colonies and two towns namely Hinjilicut and Digapahandi have achieved slum free status. The state is fast moving towards achieving slum free status in all the ULBs by March 2024. Odisha’s JAGA mission as World’s largest slum land rights and upgradation programme has successfully demonstrated that eviction is not the way to resolve the slum issues rather empowerment is, by winning two UN Habitat- World Habitat awards in 2019 and 2023.
Under the 5T Governance initiative of the Chief Minister for creating a “Happy Odisha Healthy Odisha” the Government is implementing the Mukhyamantri Karma Tatpara Abhiyan (MUKTA) an Urban Wage Employment scheme for urban poor which is implemented across 115 ULBs of the state through Community Partnership model involving the Mission Shakti SHGs and the Slum Dweller Associations. 52000 projects have been extensively implemented which includes advanced civic amenities, city beautification, rain water harvesting etc. So far 62 lakhs person days have been generated. MUKTA scheme have bagged two Global Accolades i.e. the WRI Ross Prize for Cities 2022 and the Guangzhou International Award 2021.
The Government have also planned for developing Kalyan Mandaps across all ULBs of the state under Unnati. Municipal Corporation will have 10 each, for Municipalities 4 each and for Notified area councils 2 each . Total 400 approximately Kalyan Mandap will be constructed.
Further more towards making citizen centric motorable roads of 1200 kms identified across 115 ULBs will be transformed into Paver Roads at an investment of Rs 500 cr in 2023-24.
Rejuvenating the Water Bodies in Urban Odisha and creating public places for recreation more than 2000 large water bodies to be transformed adopting nature based treatment and to be implemented in partnership with Mission Shakti SHGs under the AMA POKHARI initiative. Rs 120 crore investment will be made under this initiative.