PM Awas Yojana-Gramin Scheme

In News

• Recently, The Union Cabinet has approved the continuation of Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana Gramin (PMAY-G) for another three years till March 2024.

Major Points 

• The extension of the scheme will help in the construction of the remaining 155.75 lakh houses. It will help achieve the target of 2.95 crore ‘pucca’ houses.

• The total financial implication for the remaining construction stands at Rs 1,98,581 crore.

• It will be helpful in providing assistance for the construction of Pucca houses with basic amenities to achieve the objective of “Housing for All” in rural areas.

Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G)

• Background :
  • The rural housing scheme IAY (Indira Awaas Yojna) suffered from design flaws, lack of transparency, leakages, favouritism, and corruption at various levels.
  • So, IAY has been revamped into Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) with effect from 1st April 2016. 

• About PMAY-G  :
  • It is one of the flagship programmes of the Government of India which is driven by the noble objective of providing “Housing for All” by the year 2022.
  • It was launched by the Ministry of Rural Development.
  • It is a social welfare program through which the Government provides financial assistance to houseless beneficiaries identified using SECC 2011 data to help them construct a house of respectable quality for their personal living. 
  • Under PMAY, the cost of unit assistance is to be shared between Central and State Governments in the ratio 60:40 in plain areas and 90:10 for North Eastern and hilly states.
  • The program envisages the completion of 2.95 crore PMAY-G houses with all basic amenities by the year 2022.

• Other features:
  • Identification of beneficiaries as per the housing deprivation parameters and exclusion criteria prescribed under Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) 2011 after due verification by Gram Sabha.
  • The scheme envisioned providing other facilities to make it an aspirational home for the beneficiaries through convergence with other schemes like Swachh Bharat Mission, PM Ujjwala Yojana for providing LPG connection and unskilled wage component of 90-95 days under MGNREGA.
  • Provision of assistance for construction of toilets amounting to Rs. 12,000/- through SBM-G, MGNREGS or any other dedicated source of funding.
  • Facilitating willing beneficiaries to avail loan from Financial Institutions for an amount of up to Rs 70,000.
• Challenges : 
  • Covid-19 pandemic induced nationwide lockdown has retarded the pace of construction of rural houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin. 
  • The delays are also due to cases of the unwillingness of beneficiaries, migration, death of beneficiaries without a legal heir, delay in allotment of land to landless beneficiaries by the states/UTs .
  • Implementation was also “affected at the ground level due to unavailability of construction materials, labour, delay in the inspection of stages of house construction etc.

• Initiatives to ensure the proper functioning of the scheme:

• Regular review of progress at the level of the Ministry to ensure timely completion of targeted houses.
• Daily monitoring on various parameters like Gaps in sanction of houses, cleaning of Permanent Wait List (PWL) of PMAY-G and release of Central Share/StateMatching Share from the treasury to Single Nodal Account (SNA).
• Timely allocation of targets to the States/UTs and release of adequate funds at the level of the Ministry.
• Regular follow-ups with the State to ensure the provision of land to landless beneficiaries in rural areas.
• Steps are being taken to increase the coverage of the Rural Mason Training (RMT) programme which would increase the availability of trained masons leading to faster construction of quality houses.
• Awards to the best performing States/UTs, Districts based on performance index dashboard, thereby creating healthy competition and motivation among the States/UTs for achieving the set targets.
• Promotion of eco-friendly & innovative technologies for house construction and monitoring for example : 
  • AwaasSoft and AwaasApp: AwaasSoft provides functionalities for data entry and monitoring of multiple statistics related to implementation aspects of the scheme. 
    • New modules have been added to the software for making it more accessible and maintaining transparency in the implementation of the programme. Some modules are 
      • Landless Module – The scheme has also taken care of landless households in the permanent waitlist (PWL). 
      • E-Ticketing system – The module has been introduced to address the grievances pertaining to technical as well as non-technical issues under PMAY-G as referred by the State/UTs.
      • Aadhaar Based Payment System –ABPS allows Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) to the PMAY-G beneficiary in his/ her bank account linked with the Aadhaar number of the concerned beneficiary for the safe and authentic transaction.

Source: IE