Though the chief minister has announced the inauguration of 20,000 new houses under Life Mission in his next 100-day programme, latest data showed that the government had received 9,20,260 applications under the mission seeking homes, of which only 63.42% applications were verified till Jan 6, 2022.
Even among the verified, only 64.5% of the applications were found eligible for processing. Of the total number of applications received, only 5,83,676 applications were verified till date and 3,76,701 were found to be eligible. In effect, only 40.9% of the applicants have been cleared for homes under the mission till Jan 6.
Among districts, Palakkad received the maximum applications (1,36,228) followed by Thiruvananthapuram (1,16, 763), Kollam (82,805) and Malappuram (82,441). The applications are categorized as homeless who have land in their name and those who are homeless and landless.
While Palakkad (99,758) received maximum applications from those with ‘own land claim minus homes’, the highest number of applications i.e. those without home and land came from Thiruvananthapuram (41,700). At the same time, Kasaragod (38,124) and Kannur (38,545) received the least number of applications in both categories put together.
Government started receiving applications from Jul 1, 2020 and the opposition has been citing that there is a delay in processing these applications.
“The declared target of Life Mission was to provide homes for all homeless by the end of 2021. The final list of applicants has not been prepared yet though the government had originally said that the final list would be prepared by Sept 30, 2020. It is laughable that the CM is making new claims in his 100-day programme about the mission, when it could not even prepare the final list of eligible applicants for houses under the mission,” said opposition leader V D Satheesan.
Government had informed the assembly on Nov 3 last year that it had completed 2,62,409 houses in the five years of the first LDF government under Pinarayi Vijayan and after being re-elected, it has completed 13,600 fresh houses, under Life Mission.
Local self-government minister MV Govindan had stated then that the work on 87,000 houses is progressing and would be completed by Mar 31. Government had also claimed that the delay was only regarding fresh applications and the ones that are ongoing will be completed on time.
