Hyderabad: Union minister G. Kishan Reddy suggested that the Telangana government should join the nationwide survey to be carried out by the Centre to identify the houseless poor in rural areas. In a letter to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, he said the Centre could extend the PM Awas Yojana for Rural Areas if a list of such persons was prepared.
Kishan Reddy said the Centre had decided to allot houses to the people on the permanent waiting list from the socio-economic caste census carried out in 2011; Telangana could not provide a list of houseless poor as the erstwhile BRS government had refused to take part in a 2018 central survey.
Several states had provided such lists, Kishan Reddy said.
“The KCR government made false promises of providing double bedroom houses to the poor. Even though lakhs of people from the rural areas are shelter-less, the BRS government did not join the survey in 2018,” he explained.
Kishan Reddy said he had brought up the issue of houseless poor people from the Telangana state at a Cabinet meeting held on August 9 to the notice of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union rural development minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who positively responded to include it in the scheme if the proposals came from the state government.
Kishan Reddy said the Modi government had introduced PM Awas Yojana for Rural Areas in 2016 to construct 2.95 crore houses in the first phase by the end of 2024. During the second phase between 2024 and 2029, another two crore houses will be constructed in rural areas. The Cabinet meeting has decided to extend the benefit to at least 10 crore people, he said.
