- Recently, the Prime Minister inaugurated 5.21 lakh houses of beneficiaries of Pradhan MantriAwasYojna (PMAY)-Gramin in Madhya Pradesh.
- It was launched by the Ministry of Rural development to achieve the objective of “Housing for All” by 2022, the erstwhile rural housing scheme Indira AwaasYojana (IAY) was restructured to PMAY-G w.e.f 1st April, 2016.
Objectives:
- To provide a pucca house with basic amenities to all rural families, who are homeless or living in kutcha or dilapidated houses by the end of March 2022.
- To help rural people Below the Poverty Line (BPL) in construction of dwelling units and upgradation of existing unserviceable kutcha houses by providing assistance in the form of a full grant.
Beneficiaries:
- People belonging to SCs/STs (Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes), freed bonded labourers and non-SC/ST categories, widows or next-of-kin of defence personnel killed in action, ex servicemen and retired members of the paramilitary forces, disabled persons and minorities.
- Through a three stage validation – Socio Economic Caste Census 2011, Gram Sabha, and geo-tagging.
- The cost of unit assistance is shared between Central and State Governments in the ratio 60:40 in plain areas and 90:10 for North Eastern and hilly states.
- The minimum size of the house has been increased to 25 sq.mt (from 20sq.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 Rs. 75,000 to Rs. 1.30 lakh in hilly states.
- The assistance for construction of toilets shall be leveraged through convergence with Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin (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.
SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT