Odisha Mayurbhanj admin withholds salaries of 843 officials over poor implementation of PM Awas

Baripada, Oct 30 (PTI) The administration of Mayurbhanj in Odisha withheld the salaries of 843 employees for the district's poor performance in implementing central housing scheme PM Awas Yojana, officials said on Wednesday.
    In a letter to the block development officers (BDOs), District Collector Hema Kanta Say raised serious concerns over the district's performance in implementing the scheme and instructed them to withhold the salaries of officials whose performance was found to be wanting.
    "Even after repeated instructions and monitoring, performance in completion of rural housing is not satisfactory. Furthermore, it is found that the performance of 843 officers, out of 1,016, is very poor. They have not even achieved 63 per cent completion, even after 1 year has elapsed," he said.
    The state average for achieving the PMAY target is 63 per cent.
    Say directed that the salaries of these 843 officers should not be released from October till they achieve 63 per cent of their target.
    Maintaining that the completion of houses under the scheme should be a top priority, he directed the BDOs to monitor the achievement of the targets.
    The collector said he was forced to take the action because the district would not get more housing units till the backlogs are cleared.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)