The government has no proposal to increase the amount provided under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana, the Minister for Rural Development Narender Singh Tomar informed the Rajya Sabha on Friday.
Replying to supplementaries, he said under the scheme in Delhi the Centre has already constructed houses for the poor and asked the Delhi government to help remove impediments so that the houses can be allotted to beneficiaries.
The minister said the government plans to construct 60 lakh such houses in the current year and another 70 lakh and 65 lakh houses in 2020-21 and 2021-22 respectively.
"We have recently restructured this scheme and we are providing upto Rs 1.5 lakh for construction of each house. There is no proposal to increase the amount as of now," the minister told the house.
The minister said to achieve the objective of "Housing for All" by 2022, in rural areas of the country the Government has re-structured the erstwhile rural housing scheme Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) into Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana - Gramin PMAY-G) being implemented under the ministry.
The scheme for urban areas - Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana - Urban is being implemented by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs from June 25, 2015.
"To achieve the objective of 'Housing for All', the target number of houses to be constructed under PMAY-G by the year 2021-22, is 2.95 crore which is proposed to be achieved in phases. In the first phase 1.00 crore houses were taken up for construction in 3 years i.e., 2016-17 to 2018-19 and in the second phase 1.95 crore houses are targeted for construction in 3 years i.e., 2019-20 to 2021-22," he said.
He said beneficiaries under PMAY-G are identified based on housing deprivation parameters, as per Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), 2011 data, and after due verification by Gram Sabha followed by an appellate process.
Tomar said all states/UTs now have a single bank account of PMAY-G at the state/UT level, the state nodal account, from where the assistance is transferred directly to beneficiary account through Fund Transfer Order, thus ensuring smooth and faster transfer of funds to the beneficiary.
"Under PMAY (Urban), as on June 24, 2019, the validated demand is around 100 lakhs. A total of 81,03,196 houses has been sanctioned, out of which 26,07,913 houses have been completed. All States/UTs have been requested to saturate their demand of housing during this financial year so as to complete construction of all approved houses under PMAY(U) by 2022," the minister said.