Bhubaneswar/Balangir: Odisha received approval for an additional one lakh houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) on Saturday, taking the total number of houses sanctioned for the state under the latest allocation to five lakh.Announcing this, chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi and Union rural development minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan reaffirmed their commitment to provide a pucca house to every eligible rural family in the state at a PMAY event held in Balangir.Addressing the gathering, Majhi said Odisha’s journey towards becoming a developed state begins in its villages and that ensuring a permanent roof over every family’s head remains one of the govt’s highest priorities. “A pucca house is not merely a structure of bricks, sand and cement. For poor families living in temporary shelters, it represents dignity, security and hope of a better future,” said Majhi, adding that special focus is on people living in disaster-prone regions.Majhi said more than 41 lakh pucca houses have been completed in Odisha under various rural housing schemes since 2014-15, including over 5.66 lakh houses during the last two years. Under PMAY-G alone, 25.58 lakh houses have been completed so far, he said.Majhi said Odisha had already received approval for four lakh houses following the Awas Plus 2024 survey and another one lakh houses were sanctioned on Saturday. He urged the Centre to approve an additional one lakh houses to cover all eligible beneficiaries.He said 35,635 houses have been completed for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) families under PM-JANMAN against 41,075 sanctioned. Under the state’s Antyodaya Gruha Yojana, 1.47 lakh houses have been completed out of 2.25 lakh sanctioned.Majhi announced that the Antyodaya Gruha Yojana would be extended till 2029. Majhi said beneficiaries completing houses within five months receive an incentive of Rs 35,000, while those finishing within seven months get Rs 20,000.Union minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said he had come to Odisha not as a guest but as a servant of the people. He assured that all eligible beneficiaries would receive housing assistance and said more allocations would follow in future.Announcing that Odisha would be part of the Centre’s pilot anti-poverty programme, Chouhan said the initiative would begin from Balangir. He also promised that every village in the state would eventually be connected by all-weather roads.Earlier in the day, Majhi inaugurated and laid foundation stones for 248 projects worth Rs 911 crore in Balangir. The projects include health infrastructure, water supply systems, irrigation facilities, anganwadi centres, school classrooms, roads and hostels.