New Delhi, Mar 28 (PTI) The objective of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna-Urban and the dream of the prime minister enshrined in it will stand fulfilled within the next 18 months, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said in the Rajya Sabha on Monday.
Replying to supplementary questions of members, the minister said the government, based on the assessment demands provided by states, has sanctioned 1.15 crore houses under PMAY-U which ends in March 2022, and various projects underway will be completed in the next 18 months or so.
Replying to a specific question, he said, “It is not under consideration to review this continuation of the credit-linked subsidy scheme beyond March 31, 2022.”
PMAY-U was conceived in June 2015 and the demand for houses has gone well beyond the initial projection of one crore. The number is now 1.15 crore and in the remaining three days of this fiscal, it will go up further, the minister said.
“It was precisely in pursuance of the prime minister’s dream that by March 2022 every Indian has a ‘pukka’ roof on his/her head and have a kitchen, ‘shauchalay’ (toilet) and the title of the house would be in the name of the lady of the house, either singly or co-jointly,” he said.
In pursuance of this, all states were asked to give the Centre a demand assessment in June 2015 based on which one crore houses will have to be built, he said.
“With that the entire objective of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna-Urban would have been completed. Now there is affordable housing taking place in private sector. Some states are sending us more demand. With this, the dream of the prime minister enshrined in the PMAY-U will stand fulfilled,” Puri told Parliament, adding that one the projects are sanctioned, they are completed within a period of 18 months.
The minister said the proposal started in June 2015, and in spite of the pandemic which lasted two years, the scheme will be completed in near future.
“Normally there is a period of 18 months when the projects are completed after sanction, I would be happy to share with you the individual complete timelines of projects under the scheme,” the minister said.
He was replying to a specific question by TMC’s Derek O’Brien on when will every Indian have a house, as Prime minister Narendra Modi had stated in 2018 in Lucknow.
“Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna- Urban, the central government has sanctioned under four separate verticals a total of 1.15 crore houses, out of which 70 lakh houses have been grounded and close to 46 lakh have been handed over to the beneficiaries,” the minister also said.
It is the state government which collects the demand requirements from its citizens and sends them to the central government after consolidating them, he said.
“The original demand assessment for PMAY-U was up to 1 crore houses and subsequently the state governments revised their demand assessment estimates to 1.12 crore houses. Now it is at 1.15 crore. The scheme has more or less matured and completed their process and any project sanctioned so far, the government will ensure that they are completed,” he said.
