The Central government may save around Rupees 14,000 crore under the flagship Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana- Gramin (PMAY-G) in the current financial year as some states are not eligible to get funds, either for failing the eligibility conditions or not implementing the scheme.
The government has budgeted Rupees 54,487 crore for PMAY-G in FY24, the highest annual allocation after the launch of the scheme in 2016.
West Bengal, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the scheme in the last few years, won’t get any funds in FY24 due to violation of the norms such as branding for centrally-sponsored schemes. Telangana and Puducherry, which are not implementing PMAY-G, will also not receive any funds. Several other states have also not been able to fully utilise the funds, sources said.
In October, the rural development ministry had said that complaints were received about the West Bengal government changing the name of the central scheme to Bangla Awas Yojana. Apart from this, eligible families were deprived of houses and party workers were allotted houses in violation of the guidelines, it alleged.
To achieve the target of “Housing for All” in rural areas, the Centre has been implementing PMAY-G with effect from April 1, 2016 to assist eligible rural households with an overall target to construct 29.5 million pucca houses with basic amenities by March 2024. More than 29.4 million houses have been sanctioned to the beneficiaries so far by various states and Union Territories and 25.1 million houses have been completed as of December 7, 2023.
Under PMAY-G, the beneficiaries are provided financial assistance of Rupees 1.2 lakh in plain areas and Rupees 1.3 lakh in hilly states (including North Eastern states and UTs of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh), difficult areas and Integrated Action Plan (IAP) districts.