With completion of four years of the BJD’s fifth term in office, the State Government on Monday approved 18 proposals including a ‘Mo Ghara’ scheme.

The decision was taken at a State Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

A week after a Cabinet reshuffle inducting three new Ministers, the State Government approved the 18 proposals introducing Mo Ghara (Government Housing Assistance in Rural Areas), a new housing scheme, obviously in view of the 2024 general elections.

Under the Mo Ghara scheme in the Panchayati Raj & Drinking Water Department, the Government will provide financial assistance to meet aspiration of the lower and lower middle-class households in rural areas.

The scheme will cover all such families which were left out in the existing housing schemes due to stringent eligibility criteria or due to insufficient allocation and also those families which had received housing assistance of smaller amount in the past and now want to upgrade or expand their houses.

Under the scheme, a beneficiary can avail a loan up to Rs 3 lakh, which can be repaid in 10 years excluding a 1-year moratorium period in easy installments. They can opt for one of the four slabs of the loan amount -- Rs 1 lakh, Rs 1.5 lakh, Rs 2 lakh and Rs 3 lakh.

The Government may bear the expenses of Rs 2,150 crore for approximate 4 lakh beneficiaries (1 lakh from each loan slab) over a period of two years for the scheme.

The following categories of rural households will be eligible under the scheme.

1) lf the family is staying in a kutcha house or one pucca room with RCC roof.

2) lf the family has either not availed any Government housing assistance or has availed assistance of below Rs 70,000 in the past.

3) lf the income of the family per month is below Rs 25,000.

4) lf the family does not possess a non-commercial motorised four-wheeler for personal use.

5) If the family does not have any member as a regular Government or PSU employee or drawing a monthly pension for the service period from Government/ PSU.

6) lf the family owns below 5 acres of irrigated land or below 15 acres non-irrigated land.

7) The Government will release capital subsidy to the loan account of the beneficiaries on completion of the house. Enhanced capital subsidy will be available to the vulnerable categories like SC/ST and PwD-headed households.

The rates of the subsidy as decided by the State Cabinet are as follows:

8) The capital subsidy released to the loan accounts of the beneficiaries will result in a significant reduction in EMI for repayment and, thus, make the repayment more affordable.

9) Banks will not charge any processing fee from the beneficiary for sanction of the loan.

10) In order to further reduce the financial burden for the beneficiaries, the registration fee and stamp duties required during mortgage of title deed have been waived off by the Government. The charges for getting certified copies of relevant documents from the Sub-Registrar offices as required by bank for processing of loan applications under this scheme will also be waived.

11) The legal consultation fee is also standardised to Rs 1,000 maximum, which Government will reimburse to the banks.

12) The beneficiaries can also avail support under relevant schemes of rural sanitation, drinking water, rural electrification, etc., if found eligible and not availed earlier.