ApnaBundelkhand.com, Bhopal : Madhya Pradesh Environment and Housing Minister Jayant Malaiya today said in the Assembly that the Housing Board will be restructured in order to strengthen it and ensure smoother functioning. ''It will become a profit-making venture in three years and the financial

condition -- which was precarious for years -- is being brought back on track,'' he said while replying to a discussion on budgetary demands for the Environment, Housing and Water

Resources departments.

A development authority will be set up in towns like Ratlam, Katni and Singrauli and Rs 5,000 crore were allocated for this purpose. A Tourism Development Authority is already functional at Khajuraho.

The government had taken the initiative to improve irrigation facilities and bring transparency in this Department.

''In order to extend irrigation facility to an additional one lakh hectares, Rs 2,418.41 cr were allocated and irrigation facility increased to 4.83 per cent in the past six years while it was 3.6 per cent in the predecessor regime,'' he said.

Mr Malaiya said that Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wrote to the Centre for a package for six districts in drought-affected Bundelkhand and Rs 500 cr were sanctioned. The government also sent a proposal for repairing canals in the region.

It initiated steps to improve the Water Restructuring Project and Rs 8,000 cr were earmarked for the River-Linking Project. Over Rs 3,000 cr were sanctioned for new irrigation projects on 3.91 lakh ha.

The Pollution Control Board was also reconstructed.

Earlier, taking part in the discussion, Deputy Leader of the Opposition Rakesh Singh Chaturvedi alleged that a Rs 2.5-cr contract was awarded to a company by the Water Resources Department while the company's turnover was depicted as zero. Despite allocation of Rs 300 cr for the Chambal Canal Project, construction quality is ''substandard.''

--UNI