The government has sanctioned 30.76 lakh houses since the launch of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban), housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. “Currently, 15.65 lakh houses have been grounded and are at various stages of construction, and about 4.13 lakh houses have been constructed since the launch of the mission,” Puri said at the launch of a national workshop on the PMAY (Urban) and the Swachh Bharat Mission. The minister pegged the urban housing requirement at 12 million and said that the government is pursuing the reforms such as stamp duty exemption and single window clearance to ease the housing process. According to the Census of India, 2011 about 13.92 million households live in 33,510 slums across the country. The target of the PMAY (Urban) scheme is “essentially the urban poor” through in-situ rehabilitation along with an assistance of Rs 1 lakh per house.
Launched on June 25, 2015, the aim of PMAY is to address the gap in housing demand and supply in urban areas in respect of economically weaker sections, low and middle income groups and meet the target of “Housing for All” by 2022, with an aim to provide a decent pucca home. From the perspective of implementation, PMAY-U has four broad verticals — slum rehabilitation, affordable housing in partnership, subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction and credit-linked subsidy scheme — covering both demand-supply interventions.
Puri said that the in-situ slum rehabilitation (ISSR) scheme has had a few challenges in its implementation due to land related issues, financing models, selection of private developer, beneficiary participation and policy concerns of the states. However, he urged the states to adopt a slum-free approach and comprehensively develop their cities with focus on slum redevelopment taking complete advantage of the ISSR scheme. Puri also asked the states to ensure better outreach for the credit-linked subsidy scheme and focus on convergence between the banks, private sector and home buyers. On the progress in the affordable housing scheme, Puri said more focus should be on catering to the housing demand emerging from the economically weaker section of home buyers with no land ownership.
