New Delhi: The ambitious target of PM Narendra Modi to provide housing for all by 2022 under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin (PMAY-G) seems to be in serious jeopardy, since as many as 20 states — 14 BJP-ruled states and six states ruled by other parties — have not sanctioned a single unit for construction in 2018-19.
These 14 laggard states are Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Utta-rakhand, Assam, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka, Bihar, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, according to official data available with this newspaper.
On the brighter side, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha are the best performers in terms of sanctioning and completing houses. The conversion percentage of these states has been close to 90 per cent.
Under PMAY-G, one crore houses were to be constructed for the rural poor in the first phase between 2016-17 and 2018-19. During 2018-19, out of the 29 states, 20 failed to sanction even a single housing unit for construction as part of the scheme.
Though around 80 lakh-odd houses have been constructed under the first phase as against the target of one crore houses in three years (first phase), the dismal performance by the 20 states in the last year of the first phase of the scheme, has led to a lot of concern at the Centre.
In the second phase of the scheme, which would run between 2019-20 and 2021-22, two crore houses are to be constructed for the rural poor. Thus a total of three crore houses are to be constructed under PMAY-G in six years. As part of the scheme, a pucca house with basic amenities is to be provided to all those in rural areas who live in kutcha houses.
TS tops these states in terms of its non-participation in the Centre’s housing scheme. The state did not sanction a single housing unit for construction under PMAY-G, ever since the inception of the scheme in 2016-17. The TS government, however, has embar-ked on its own two-bedro-om housing scheme whose construction has been sta-lled by a shortage of funds.
