Bhubaneswar: The state government is worried as the Puri district administration is running behind schedule in executing six projects sanctioned under the Centre's ambitious Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (Hriday).

So far the status of the projects monitored by the Centre through a centralised dashboard revealed that the district administration has attained 44 per cent physical completion on an overall basis. The only significant development is a landscape garden at Banki Muhana that is 90 per cent complete.

The administration is executing five other projects that includes landscaping of Shri Jagannath Ballav Mutt and Atharanala riverfront, revamp of Bada Odia Mutt and Ganga Mata Mutt, revival of ponds at Jaghaghara and retrofitting of building facades near Parikrama Marg.

The Centre has so far released Rs 10.39 crore for the projects against a sanctioned amount of Rs 20.34 crore.

"It is a Centre-specific scheme where the Union government keeps in touch directly with the district administration while we play a role of facilitator," said a senior official of housing and urban development department.

Last November, the Centre threatened to stop grants on the ground of slow implementation of projects. Urban development secretary G. Mathi Vathanan had then told The Telegraph that they were trying to identify the difficulties facing the specific projects and would take steps to fast track those.

The slow pace of the projects has become a headache for the state government since the scheme will end in November, following which funds will not be released to the state. According to the guideline, funds were transferred to the administration based on the stage of progress of each project.

A senior district administration official said they would expedite the projects after rath yatra. "The district collector has already called a meeting after rath yatra to discuss the progress of Hriday projects," he said.

He said in four of the six projects 50 per cent of the work had been done, while a few issues needs to be resolved regarding the revamp of Bada Odia Mutt and Ganga Mata Mutt and landscape development of Shri Jagannath Ballabh Mutt.

The Centre had launched Hridy in January 2015 and Puri became the only city from the state to qualify for the scheme.