Saddled with an ambitious target of constructing one crore rural households in the next three years and a total three crore dwellings by 2022 under Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G), the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is all set to review its progress on October 6.
This is the first review of the Prime Minister’s pet scheme ever since it was created after converting the Indira Aawas Yojana of the erstwhile UPA regime in April this year. According to highly placed sources, the project will be scrutinised by senior PMO officials in the presence of the Niti Aayog, urban development and rural development ministries, and the specific focus is said to be on the rate of construction of habitats in rural areas.
Considering the fact that the PM has been quite bullish on providing housing for all (rural as well as urban poor) by 2022 — which is the 75th year of Independence — sources pointed out that he is quite keen that the target of constructing one crore households in rural India by 2019 is achieved by that time. Incidentally the financial year 2018-19 will also be the final year of the NDA government in office, and therefore efforts are on to at least expedite the one crore houses construction target.
More importantly, the scheme is expected to boost job creation in rural areas, and hence the PMO is also eager to fast track it, keeping in mind the socio-economic advantage it will provide to that particular section of society.
The Government will be spending Rs 82,000 crore for constructing one crore houses between 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19. Out of this Rs 60,000 crore is to be generated internally while the remaining amount will be sourced through NABARD.
Significantly the entire project is linked with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA), wherein an additional Rs 12,000 crore her household has been included for construction of toilets in them. In addition to this, it is also in sync with MGNREGA, as 90 to 95 of mandays work has been allocated to unskilled workers for construction of these units.
Beneficiaries of the rural houses would be chosen according to data taken from the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) of 2011.
