A family in Koraput district that once endured heat, rain, and cold inside a thatched-roof home now has a pucca house — and Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi is making sure the story is heard. On Wednesday, 30 September 2026, the CM took to X to spotlight Sumati Bhukta, a resident of Koraput, as the latest face of Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Gramin) delivery in the state.

Writing in Odia, Majhi said the fruits of development are reaching every eligible beneficiary through 'service and resolve' — 'ସେବା ଓ ସଂକଳ୍ପ' ['seva o sankalpa']. He described how Sumati Bhukta's family, which previously suffered through the elements in a makeshift dwelling, has today received 'a safe roof, dignity, and new self-confidence.'

Koraput: A District Where Housing Delivery Carries Extra Weight

Koraput, nestled in southern Odisha, is one of the state's most tribal-dominated and economically vulnerable districts. Rural housing schemes like PMAY-G carry outsized significance here, where inadequate shelter intersects with broader challenges of poverty and geographic remoteness. Highlighting a beneficiary from this district — rather than a more prosperous coastal zone — signals the scheme's reach into the state's hardest-to-serve pockets.

Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Gramin) was launched by the central government in 2016 to replace earlier rural housing efforts with a more structured, target-driven programme. It provides financial assistance to eligible rural households for constructing pucca houses with basic amenities. Targets under the scheme have been extended and revised in subsequent years to cover residual demand across states.

BJP's Beneficiary Storytelling Strategy in Odisha

Since Mohan Charan Majhi took office in June 2024 following the BJP's historic win in Odisha — ending two decades of Biju Janata Dal rule — his government has leaned into beneficiary-centred communication. Putting a name and a face to a central scheme is a deliberate political grammar: it personalises policy, localises credit, and links state governance to national flagship programmes.

This is not unique to Odisha. Across BJP-governed states, social media posts featuring individual beneficiaries of PMAY-G, Ujjwala, and Jan Dhan have become a standard template for demonstrating delivery. The message is consistent: the government's 'sankalp' (resolve) finds its proof not in spreadsheets but in a specific family's changed life.

The broader question for Odisha is how many such stories remain to be written. State-level progress on residual PMAY-G targets — and whether the next state budget includes supplementary rural housing allocations — will be the real measure of the programme's momentum.

For Sumati Bhukta's family in Koraput, the arithmetic is already settled. One house. One family. That is the unit the Chief Minister is counting on to make the policy tangible.