92% of Projects under PMAY-G Completed

Under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G), 92% target of completion has been achieved in the 1^st phase of the scheme i.e. from 2016-17 to 2018-19 with intended beneficiaries also coming down from 2.95 cr to 2.14 cr due to duplication and other incidences.

Rural Housing In India

• The public housing programme in the country started with the rehabilitation of refugees immediately after independence and since then, it has been a major focus area of the Government as an instrument of poverty alleviation.
• The rural housing programme, as an independent programme, started with Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) in January 1996.
• Although IAY addressed the housing needs in the rural areas, certain gaps like non-assessment of housing The shortage, lack of transparency in the selection of beneficiaries, low quality of the house and lack of technical supervision, lack of convergence, loans not availed by beneficiaries and weak the mechanism for monitoring were identified by Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in 2014.
• To address these gaps in the rural housing program and in view of the Government’s commitment to providing “Housing for All’’ by the scheme 2022, IAY has been re-structured into Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana –Gramin (PMAY-G).

Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana- Gramin

• PMAY-G aims at providing a pucca house, with basic amenities, to all houseless householders and those households living in kutcha and dilapidated houses, by 2022.
• The immediate objective was to cover 1.00 crore households living in kutcha houses/dilapidated houses in three years from 2016-17 to 2018- 19.
• The minimum size of the house has been increased to 25 sq. mt (from20sq.mt) with a hygienic cooking space. The unit assistance has been increased from Rs. 70,000 to Rs. 1.20 lakh in plain and from Rs75,000 to Rs 1.30 lakh in hilly states, difficult areas.
• The beneficiary is entitled to 90-95 person day of unskilled labour from MGNREGS.
• The assistance for the construction of toilets shall be leveraged through convergence with SBM-G, MGNREGS or any other dedicated source of funding. Convergence for piped drinking water, electricity connection, LPG gas connection etc. different Government programmers are also to be attempted.
• The cost of unit assistance is to be shared between Central and State Government in the ratio 60:40 in plain areas and 90:10 for North Eastern and the Himalayan States.
• To ensure that assistance is targeted at those who are genuinely deprived and that the selection is objective and verifiable, PMAY-G instead of selecting a beneficiary from among the BPL households selects beneficiary using housing deprivation parameters in the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), 2011 date which is to be verified by the Gram Sabhas.
• To address grievances in beneficiary selection an appellate process has also been put in place.
• Towards better quality of construction, setting up of a Nation Technical Support Agency (NTSA) at the national level is envisaged.
  1. One of the major constraints in quality house construction is the lack of a sufficient number of skilled masons.
  2. To address this, a pan-India training and certification programme of Masons has been launched in the States/UTs. This will, in addition, and career progression for rural masons.

• The beneficiary to be assisted by in-house construction with a bouquet of house design typologies inclusive of disaster resilience features the are suitable to their local geo-climatic conditions .
  1. This exercise will ensure that the beneficiary does not over-construct in the initial stages of house building which often results in an incomplete house or the beneficiary is forced to borrow money to complete the house.
• The programme implementation is to be monitored not only electronically, but also through community participation (Social Audit), Member of Parliament (DISHA Committee), Central and State Government officials, National Level Monitors etc.