Odisha Infrastructure Push: Housing, Water, Tourism Cleared

Buying a small home in Odisha just got cheaper. In a single sitting, the state Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi, cleared a broad package covering affordable housing, clean water, rivers and tourism. The Odisha infrastructure push pairs everyday relief for homebuyers with big-ticket spending on water systems and a new land bank for hotels.

A real break for affordable buyers

The most direct win is for first-time and budget buyers. The government has cut stamp duty and registration fees to less than one per cent for affordable housing units up to 60 sq m built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Urban 2.0 scheme. On a home purchase, where these charges normally run to several per cent, that is a real saving that lowers the upfront cost of owning. It is the kind of policy that nudges fence-sitting buyers in the smaller home segment.

Cleaning up the capital's water

Bhubaneswar gets a set of utility upgrades. The Cabinet approved a Rs 112 crore project to bring round-the-clock drinking water to new Town Planning scheme areas under the Bhubaneswar Development Authority, with completion targeted by April 2028. To cut pollution flowing into the Daya River, it also sanctioned a Rs 101 crore sewage treatment plant at the Gangua Nallah confluence to intercept and treat wastewater.

The water theme runs wider, too. A Rs 500 crore Waterfront Development Scheme will clean, rejuvenate and beautify riverfronts and urban water bodies across the state over five years, tying environmental cleanup to public amenity. Riverfronts, in many Indian cities, have become both an environmental headache and a development opportunity.

What the Odisha infrastructure package funds

Beyond the capital, the spending leans on water security and connectivity. The bigger sanctions include:

• A Rs 194 crore spillway for the Brutang Irrigation Project, set to irrigate 23,300 hectares of drought-prone farmland across 309 villages in Nayagarh
• A Rs 440 crore bridge-cum-barrage on the Mahanadi River in Sambalpur, replacing the heavily damaged Ayodhya Sagar weir while securing local drinking water and supporting fisheries
• A waiver of over Rs 13 lakh in land revenue for the National Disaster Response Force, for an approach road to the Mundali complex in Cuttack

Together they point to a package weighted as much toward rural water and resilience as toward urban housing.

A land bank built for tourism

The most eye-catching move is aimed at hotels. The Cabinet launched a Rs 1,500 crore Tourism Land Bank to allocate around 5,500 acres of investment-ready land at destinations such as Chilika, Puri and Konark over the next five years, opening the door to new hotels and resorts.

The design is deliberate. The idea is to offer ready parcels for planned tourism development and attract structured investment into Odisha's coastal and cultural sites, without altering existing land ownership. For developers, ready land in marquee destinations removes one of the biggest hurdles to building. Taken with the housing and water measures, it rounds out a package built to strengthen urban amenities, regional connectivity and the state's tourism economy at once.

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