Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana

India has a long history of organizing public hearings as well as public issues, the paradox of Indian Economic growth can be witnessed in the policies and schemes which the government introduced and renewed every year, one among the important scheme is Pradhan Mantri Awaas yojana. India’s aim to addressing the issue of housing shortage and the mission of “housing for all by 2022” targets to cover maximum housing for the people both in urban and rural area. Housing has become one of the basic needs in every country. Everyone dreams to have roof over his head as it is one of the basic human requirements after food and clothing. Affordable housing is generally built by the private players in some country but in India, Indian Government is focusing on creating viable social housing at risk population such as children, senior citizens, vulnerable populations and the disabled. Article 21 of the Indian constitution upholds the Right to life, “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by the law”, Indian courts in multiple judgments have held that the Right to life includes the right to housing, clean water, electricity, sanitation and livelihood among other elements. Recognizing the need and significance of easy access to housing for deprived is of utmost importance and to fulfill the objective, India in June 1996 became a signatory to the Istanbul declaration on Human Settlement.

Rural housing has become the prominent goal of current government, the Pradhan Mantri Awaas yojana is a restructured scheme of Indira Awaas Yojana, this revamped version generally covers fund flow mechanism, quality, design and other implementation activites. The Ministry of Rural Development for proper and effective implementation of the programme and construction of quality house, has issued general guidelines and housing designs, the beneficiaries are provided with the unit assistance of Rs. 1.20 lakh for plain areas and Rs. 1.30 lakh for the hilly and difficult and the integrated action plan areas, the funds are digitally transferred to beneficiary account under the established state level forms. Apart from these facilities they provide an institutional finance up to Rs.70,000 are entitled to 90-95 days of employment under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme, also Rs.12000/ for constructing toilets under Swachh Bharat Mission. Pradhan Mantri Awaas yojana provides 25 square metre of house area including area for hygienic cooking. One of the most important feature of Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana is operating in a transparent manner its prime importance is not only constructing the house but also to ensure quality and timely construction. These works are monitored with the help of Awaas soft at both central and state level government. National Technical Support Agency acts as a nodal agency to assist in facilitating the same. The selection of beneficiary are done using the housing deprivation parameters in the Socio Economic and caste census (SECC) 2011 data which is verified by the Gram Sabhas. The households that are houseless and living in a zero one and two hut wall and hut roof houses can be separated and targeted. The permanent wait list so generated also ensures that the states have some ready list of households to be covered under the scheme. Awaas app a mobile application is used to monitor real time, evidence based progress of the house construction through date and time stamped and geo referenced photographs of the house. The scheme aims at boosting home ownership and offers affordable housing options to not just low income also to middle income citizens also to the women.

The Credit Linked subsidy Scheme is given in the name of female head or for joint name between the male head and his wife. The MIG scheme benefits given to the widows and single working women it is also extended to manual scavengers, transgenders and person with disability. The scheme helps on the intention of lowering burden of building a house while at the same time, offering benefit to a larger section of society. Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana not only strengthen the economy but it has an strong impact in employment also it channels direct and indirect Rural Economy. As far as the progress 88% of the house are constructed in the phase I due to the central funding assistance for which the government allocated 1.3 lakh crore out of that 1.27 lakh crore was approved and 1.18 lakh crore was approved by the government at the first phase. In the phase II 24% i.e 0.61 lakh crore has been made till date with the Centre and State sharing 62:38. The velocity in Phase II will remain critical for achieving the state targeted within the defined timeline. As we saw on the beginning rural housing has been one of the top priority areas for the current government but the challenges are wide enough to cover. Beginning from identification of the right client, increasing reach through micro mortgage financing mechanisms and self help groups and flexible paying mechanisms to cater to variable income flows, incentivizing through policies, schemes for slum redevelopment and rehabilitation, ensuring adequate availability of land, streaming of land records, inclusion of mass housingzones, single window clearence for smaller projects, encouragement to private participation and partnership are the notable challenges which the Government addressed in each phase. Apart from these challenges the government has strengthen the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana scheme to ensure housing for all.