Centre to build 1 crore houses under PMAY-G by 2019

The Government today said that it has approved the construction of 1 crore houses with the financial implication of Rs. 81,975 crore for the period 2016-17 to 2018-19. The Minister of State for Rural Development Shri Ram Kripal Yadav said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha that as per provisional figures of Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011, approximately 4 crore rural households face housing deprivation. After accounting for the houses that were constructed under Indira Aawas Yojana, IAY and State sponsored housing schemes since 2011, it has been estimated that 2.95 crore more houses, with an anticipated variation of ± 10%, would need to be constructed to achieve the objective of ‘Housing For All’ by the year 2022.

In the first phase (from 2016-17 to 2018-19) one crore houses are targeted for construction under Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana-Grameen, PMAY-G. Targets for the remaining period (till 2022) will be decided after verification and finalisation of permanent wait lists, based on SECC 2011 data by all States/UTs. Shri Yadav said that to provide technical support in achieving the targets of “Housing for All” a National Technical Support Agency (NTSA) for Rural Housing shall be set up at the national level.

The Minister informed that to achieve the objective of ‘Housing for All’ various features have been incorporated into the scheme architecture of PMAY-G, some of which are as below:

(i) Availability of sufficient financial resources both in the form of budgetary support and borrowing from NABARD to meet the expenditure for construction of houses.

(ii) Electronic transfer of assistance under Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to resolve problems of delayed payments and expedite completion.

(iii) Comprehensive online monitoring through the scheme MIS-AwaasSoft.

(iv) Inspection and Geo tagging of houses, through the mobile app- AwaasApp by beneficiaries to reduce delays.

(v) Increasing number of trained rural masons through Training, Assessment and Certification.

(vi) Setting up of Programme Management Unit (PMUs) at state and sub state level to review progress on a daily basis, provide requisite technical support and facilitation and plug gaps in implementation using administrative funds available under the scheme.