BJP-ruled states working hard to achieve housing for all by 2022

Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Assam and the Congress-ruled state of Karnataka are working hard to implement the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) target of providing housing for all by the year 2022.

A total of 32.14 lakh houses were completed in fiscal 2016-17 out of a total of 44 lakh houses approved for the same period.

The Ministry of Rural Development is working hard to complete all of them by December 2017. A completion period of six to twelve months is being followed under the PMAY-G and the government plans to complete 51 lakh houses in 2017-18.

According to a report released by the Department of Rural Development, an additional 33 lakh houses will be sanctioned for 2017-18 shortly. A similar number is proposed to be completed in 2018-19, achieving the 2016-19 target of 1.35 crore houses, the release says.

These homes will have a cooking area, toilet, LPG and electricity connections and water supply through convergence. Beneficiaries can plan their homes as per their needs.

The government has adopted a three stage filter selection process to avoid error and corruption in the PMAY-G.

It is because the CAG's Performance Audit Report-2014 had highlighted the problem of ineligible beneficiaries covered under Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY). The government has also initiated a training programme for rural masons to meet a critical skill requirement for quality construction.

The selection of beneficiaries has also been through a rigorous process using Socio Economic Census (SECC) Data for those who are homeless or in 0, 1, 2 kutcha rooms with kutcha roof. The SECC data has been validated by the Gram Sabha and also subjected to space technology validation to ensure that there is no inclusion of errors.

The thrust in 2016-17 was to launch PMAY-G with all tasks completed regarding selection of beneficiaries, IT/DBT platform, space technology use, training programme for rural masons, finalisation of housing design typologies etc. The other major thrust was to complete most of the 36 lakh incomplete Indira Awaas Yojana houses which had been pending from anywhere between one to four years.

On account of network and IT-related issues on AwaasSoft MIS, only 24.81 lakh completed houses have been uploaded on AwaasSoft so far. The balance are in the process of being uploaded. The completion in 2016-17 is almost two to three times higher than those were getting completed in earlier years. 100 percent use of AwaasSoft MIS and IT/DBT system is being ensured.

As part of the governance reform, from anywhere between two to 20 bank accounts in every district for the rural housing programme earlier, there is now a single nodal account at the state level from where funds are directly transferred electronically on the AwaasSoft-PFMS platform to the beneficiary's account.

The beneficiaries under PMAY Gramin have been selected up to 2022 based on the prioritisation and in a transparent manner. The three filters have ensured that the genuinely poor homeless and those living in dilapidated houses have been selected.

A large number of households from vulnerable groups and large number of women have been selected as beneficiaries.

House design typologies incorporating disaster resilient features have been finalised and are being used by state governments under the programme.

-ANI