Union Ministry of Rural Development on Tuesday set a deadline for Odisha urging the State government to allot and sanction houses pending under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) scheme.
Setting the deadline to finish the targeted allotment of houses, the Centre urged the Odisha government to complete it by December 15. If the State fails, the Centre will withdraw the remaining houses and allot them to other states.
Apart from Odisha, the Ministry has also reprimanded four other States including Maharashtra, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Bihar for their slow pace of PMAY house allotment.
As per the data provided by the Centre, Odisha is yet to provide PMAY houses to 18843 beneficiaries out of the total 57932 landless, identified by the State government.
Similarly, Assam is 20438 houses behind. Maharashtra is yet to provide 100644 PMAY houses, Tamil Nadu 96806 and Bihar has 16943 beneficiaries who are yet to receive houses.
In a letter to the States, the Ministry wrote, “As you are aware that providing land to the landless PMAY-G beneficiaries is the responsibility of the State governments, this issue has been time and again taken up with the States on various instances. However, land is yet to be provided to 2,79,623 landless PMAY-G beneficiaries majorly from the States of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Odisha and Bihar which contribute to around 92% of the total remaining landless PMAY-G beneficiaries.”
The timeline to construct 2.95 crore houses under the PMAY-G is March 2024 and all the States/UTs have been requested to provide land to landless PMAY-G beneficiaries on priority and sanction houses to landless beneficiaries by 15th December 2022.
Urging to make the allotment process faster, the Centre wrote, “If the States/UTs fail to do so by December 15, the allocated target linked to the landless PMAY-G beneficiaries would be withdrawn from the State/UT and the same will be re-allocated to other better performing States/ UTs.”
The Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) is a flagship program of the Government of India that aims to provide houses with basic amenities to 2.95 crore houseless households living in kutcha and dilapidated houses in rural areas by March 2024. It includes the landless beneficiaries i.e., those without land to construct houses, who are among the most deserving beneficiaries in the Permanent Wait List (PWL) of PMAY-G.
(Reported By Kapilendra Pradhan, OTV)