Unable to meet its target of providing a house to every rural household under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY-Gramin), the rural development ministry would seek an extension of two years for the flagship programme. The approved mission period for PMAY-Gramin would end on April 1.
According to sources, the rural development ministry would seek Cabinet approval for extension till March 31, 2022. The mission, which was launched in 2016, had set an initial target of constructing 2.95 crore houses based on Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 data.
The ministry had set the target of constructing 1crore houses in the first phase of PMAY-Gramin by March 31, 2019. However, till February 27 this year, 96.84 lakh houses had been completed.
In the middle of the first phase, the ministry scaled down the target to 2.47 cr from 2.95 cr. Now, even with the pared target, the ministry still has to complete 1.47 crore houses. So- urces told ET that the ministry would put before the Cabinet that even beyond March 31, 2022 there would be a spillover of 5-6 lakh houses.
A senior official said, “We are seeking extension till March 2022 but the mission would need another 1-2 years to complete the task. The spillover would be anywhere between 3 and 4%.”
Even as the ministry is seeking an extension, it is working on the reasons for the spillover. It has found two main reasons – death of identified beneficiaries and temporary or permanent migration for work. In many cases, the beneficiary dies and does not have a legal heir.
The ministry has now decided that the land for the house would be transferred to a landless person in the village. A seniority list is maintained in every block and the person next in queue could also be entitled to get the house. In case of migration, a village would need to identify the households and hold a gram sabha to delete their names from the list of beneficiaries.
