1 cr houses to be constructed under PMAY-G by Dec 2018

Speed Post News Network

New Delhi : Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) on November 20, 2016, from Agra, UP.  The erstwhile rural housing programme, Indira AwaasYojana (IAY), was restructured into PMAY-G.

To achieve “Housing for All by 2022”, a target of completing one crore PMAY-G new pucca houses in rural areas by  March 31, 2019 and 2.95 crore pucca houses by 2022 was set. Of these, 51 lakh houses were to be completed by March 31, 2018, which included completion of expected 2 lakh incomplete IAY houses as well.

The performance of the rural housing scheme has shown upward swing, increased nearly four times in the last four years. This is despite the fact that it took a few months to complete the process of beneficiary registration, geo-tagging, account verification etc. after the programme’s launch on November 20, 2016.

Towards meeting the target of construction of 1 crore PMAY-Gramin houses by December, 2018, while more than 76 lakh beneficiaries have been sanctioned houses, approximately 63 lakh beneficiaries have received 1^st installment. Highest number of PMAY-G houses have been completed in the State of Uttar Pradesh during the financial year 2017-18 followed by Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal.

In fact, almost all States who have the highest number of PMAY-G beneficiaries like Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Maharashra, Jharkhand etc, are on course for completion of PMAY-G houses within the prescribed timeframe. So far 38.22 lakh PMAY-G houses have been completed. With Assam and Bihar also speeding up completion of houses, the government hopes to complete 60 lakh PMAY-G houses by June, 2018, and 1 crore by December, 2018, according to a PIB release.

The faster completion of quality houses under PMAY-G has been facilitated by payment of assistance directly into the beneficiary account through IT-DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) platform directly from single State Nodal Account maintained at the State level. Use of IT-DBT platform has ensured transparent, hassle-free and quality programme implementation.  Payment to beneficiaries under PMAY-G, is routed through Public Financial Management System (PFMS).

The Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) has led to reduction in  time and cost in house construction, ease in tracking fund flow to beneficiaries, transparency leading to stoppage of leakages, and better quality of construction of houses. A total of 1,92,58,246 transactions through electronic cheques (Fund Transfer Orders) have been done by State Governments during 2016-18, to transfer assistance amount of Rs 65,237.50 crores directly to beneficiaries’ accounts till April 5, 2018.

To ensure quality construction of a house and to facilitate availability of trained masons in the rural areas, Rural Mason Trainings are being organized. A total of 25,000 trainees have been enrolled of which 12,500 trainees have been trained and certified. The rural mason training has been initiated in 11 States and Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh have taken the lead and have the highest number of certified rural masons.