The Center has turned down the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government’s request for approval of houses for 13 lakh additional “eligible beneficiaries” under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G).
In a letter to Union Rural Development Minister o in April this year, UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya had urged the Center to sanction 13 lakh houses under PMAY-G in 2022-23, in addition to 11.66 lakh houses. was approved. As per the “Accommodation+” list in 2020-21 and 2021-22.
However, in his reply sent in May, Singh told Maurya that UP has already been given a “full and final” allotment of 11.66 lakh houses as per the recommendations of the expert committee.
The Center had launched PMAY-G in 2016 to provide houses to all in rural areas by 2022 (the scheme was later extended to 2024), and a target of building 2.95 crore houses.
While 2.15 crore beneficiaries were identified using specified parameters from the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 database, the remaining 80 lakh beneficiaries were identified by the Union Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) through states and union territories. Went. Through a survey using ‘Housing+’ – a mobile application designed to survey households not covered in SECC 2011.
According to sources in the Ministry of Rural Development, 14.49 lakh families in UP were found eligible as per SECC parameters after verification. The UP government found another 32.86 lakh beneficiaries eligible after verifying the details uploaded in the ‘Awas+’ survey. But the Center has said that the expert committee constituted to analyze the ‘Awas+’ data found only 11.66 lakh eligible.
While the gap between the number of homes found eligible by the state government based on ‘Housing+’ data and those approved by the Centre, is high, the state is pushing for an additional 13 lakh houses.
According to ministry data, till August 17 this year, the Center had targeted 26.15 lakh houses (14.49 lakh from SECC data, 11.66 lakh from Awas Plus survey) in UP under PMAY-G, out of which 25.79 lakh houses were targeted. went. have been completed.
But, demanding additional houses under the scheme, Maurya, in his letter to Singh on April 7, said: “Under PMAY-G, houses have been provided to 14.49 lakh beneficiaries who are eligible as per SECC 2011 list. were found. Other than this. As per the ‘Awas+’ list, out of 11.66 lakh approved houses, 10.78 lakh beneficiaries’ houses have been completed and the remaining houses will be completed by April 2022. There are still 13 lakh eligible beneficiaries as per the Awas+ list, for whom the house will have to be sanctioned.”
Maurya said that out of the 80 lakh houses to be built across the country as per the Housing+ list, the Center has allotted 11.66 lakh houses to UP for 2020-21 and 2021-22. “Thereafter, no more houses are to be allotted to the state,” he wrote, adding that UP will not get any housing target under PMAY-G in 2022-23, though 13 lakh beneficiaries are yet to be covered.
In his reply dated May 27, Rural Development Giriraj Singh wrote: “In this matter, I would like to inform you that to achieve the ‘housing for all goal, a total target of construction of 2.95 crore houses has been set under the PMAY-G… As per the SECC 2011, there are (about) 2.15 crore eligible beneficiaries and to fill the remaining gap of 80 lakh, the ‘Awaas+’ list is being used. It is also noteworthy that as per the recommendations of the expert committee constituted for analysing the ‘Awaas+’ data, a target of 63.68 lakh houses has been allocated to states and UTs, which includes the full and final allocation of 11,66,127 houses to Uttar Pradesh.”
“Therefore, as per the recommendations of the expert committee, the full permissible target has been allotted to Uttar Pradesh,” Singh wrote.
As per the recommendation of the expert panel, UP got the full allotment under Awas+ only last year; Sources in the ministry said that therefore “no fresh allocation” has been made this year.
Earlier, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had also written to the then Rural Development Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, demanding the allotment of 25.54 lakh houses to the state as per the Housing+ list for 2021-22. This demand was also made by UP Rural Development Minister Rajendra Pratap Singh in a letter written to Tomar on 2 February 2021.
