Govt boosts PMAY budget while previous targets only partially met

Centre has increased budget for housing scheme, although older targets haven't been met

Since 2016-17 (FY17), the budget for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) - the flagship housing scheme of the government - has increased 280 per cent, from Rs 20,936 crore in the Revised Estimates of FY17 to Rs 79,590 crore in Union Budget 2023-24.

The targets for the number of houses to be built under this scheme are yet to be met.

PMAY is a housing scheme of the Union government, directed at providing affordable housing to the urban and rural poor.

PMAY (Gramin) is a rural housing scheme under the Ministry of Rural Development.

PMAY (Urban) is under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

The scheme faces several challenges.

These include administrative delays, such as those between sanctioning a home and various stages of verification, says Neeha Susan Jacob, senior research associate at accountability initiative, Centre for Policy Research.

For PMAY (Gramin) specifically, another issue is the identification of eligible citizens by gram panchayats, says Jacob.

Officials in gram panchayats who identify eligible citizens for the programme could be biased or politically motivated in whom they choose, observes the report.

This possibility of prejudiced eligibility for the programme is compounded by a lack of access to grievance redress mechanisms for the economically and socially deprived sections of the population.

"There can be geographical challenges as well. For instance, hilly states in the Northeast, like Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland, face adverse climatic conditions and geographies… it takes them far longer to build a house than the norms stipulate,” says Jacob.

Source: IndiaSpend