Bhubaneswar: The state government will provide houses to families without homestead land in mining-affected areas and has directed officials to prepare a special package for the purpose.

At present, families without homestead land are not eligible for housing benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awas Yojana.

The matter came up for discussion during a meeting of officials at the secretariat on Saturday to review activities of the Odisha Mineral Bearing Area Development Corporation presided over by chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi.

Revenue, forest & environment and ST & SC development departments will work in tandem on the special package.

Padhi asked the officials to allot homestead land as close to their villages as possible. He also suggested allowing a group of landless families to be rehabilitated at a particular place and provided house building assistance.

By March, construction of 17,445 dwellings had been completed in 691 mining-affected villages covered by the corporation. Padhi asked the panchayati raj department to construct another 2,500 houses by May.

Around 244 pipe water projects had also been sanctioned to supply drinking water to 36 blocks covered by the corporation. Water sources had been identified for 208 such projects and the tender for 173 projects was completed by March. Field execution had started in 146 projects. Out of these, 27 have been completed.

Padhi directed the officials to explore the possibility of setting up mega lift irrigation projects to draw water from nearby rivers or streams as water sources could not be located in case of 36 projects.

Around Rs 35 crore from corporation funds had been spent on environment development through block plantations on 852 hectares, regeneration of degraded forest on 1,291 hectares, avenue plantation along 842km roads and plantation of 98,000 saplings in urban areas.

Around 7.5 lakh saplings have been distributed among the people for plantation.