New Delhi: Even as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman announced Rs 48,000 crore for 80 lakh houses to be constructed in 2022-23 under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY-Urban) scheme, India missed the deadline of achieving Housing for All by 2022.
Launched in the year 2015, the central government vouched to provide houses to all urban poor by 2022. Sitaraman, however, included PMAY-Rural under the ambit of the financial allocation for 2022-23.
As per government statistics, against the demand of 1.12 crore houses, validated by States and UTs, 1.14 crore have been sanctioned by the Ministry under PMAY-U.
Out of this, more than 54.4 lakh houses have been completed and delivered to the beneficiaries and remaining are in various stages of construction and grounding.
In the year 2020-21, against a sanctioned number of 19,07,829 houses a total of 14,56,492 houses have been constructed till January 24 this year.
Maximum number of houses have been constructed in Uttar Pradesh (2,99,776) followed by 1,63,889 houses in Gujarat and 1,49,187 houses constructed in Maharashtra.
Significantly, out of the 54,39,898 houses constricted so far under PMAY-U, 5,76,735 houses are yet to be occupied.
As per government statistics, A&N Island is leading the list of States and UTs where maximum number of houses (2,04,563) are yet to be occupied. The UT of Andaman and Nicobar Island is followed by Telangana (1,20,519) and Gujarat (83,176).
Also read: Central Vista project: Rs 2,600 cr for construction of non-residential office buildings
Under PMAY-U, Central Government is sanctioning the proposals based on the detailed project report (DPR) along with project cost prepared by the implementing agencies of States and UTs.
Government of India is providing its fixed share as central assistance of Rs 1.0 lakh under In-Situ Slum Redevelopment (ISSR), Rs 1.5 lakh for Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) and Beneficiary led individual house construction or enhancement (BLC) verticals of PMAY-U.
The remaining cost of the House as per DPR is shared by States, UTs, ULBs and Beneficiaries.
"Completion of projects generally takes 12-36 months under different vertices of the scheme. Any cost escalation, due to delay in construction or otherwise is borne by States, UTs, ULBs, and Beneficiaries as per DPR," said Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri in the Parliament on Thursday.
Puri, however, claimed that PMAY-U, being implemented since 2015, is a demand driven scheme and government of India has not fixed any target for construction of houses in a State or UT.
"All States and UTs have undertaken a demand survey to assess housing requirement for the eligible beneficiaries in urban areas and prepared project proposal accordingly," said Puri.
Also read: Dignity housing project at Kollur in Telangana lives upto its name
During the last five years since 2016-17 to 2020-21, an amount of Rs 92,574.68 crore have been released as central assistance under PMAY-U.
Talking to ETV Bharat, Professor KK Pandey, from the centre for urban studies, Indian Institute of Public Administration said that the COVID 19 pandemic had severely affected the construction of houses under PMAY-U.
"Corona has stopped the construction work, though it has affected both urban and rural areas equally. Although projects have been delayed there are many States like Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat which have done tremendously well," said Prof Pandey.
He said that with more determination the central government has decided to complete the project and that is why a target of completing 80 lakh houses have been taken up.
"This is an ambitious project which will also create employment for the construction workers. States like Madhya Pradesh is also providing houses to the construction workers to retain them to avoid further crisis of workers," said Prof Pandey.
