Only 806 houses completed against 14,649 sanctioned under PMAY-U
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, July 31: Jammu and Kashmir is soft-paddling on implementation of Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) aimed at ensuring housing for all despite explicit directions and reminders from the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. Due to this, the State is unlikely to meet the target fixed by the President of India and Prime Minister.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that President of India, in his address to the Joint Session of Parliament on June 9, 2014 had announced that by the time the nation completes 75 years of its independence every family will have a ‘pucca’ house with water connection, toilet facilities and 24×7 electricity supply etc.
Subsequently, Prime Minister envisioned housing for all by 2022 and in order to achieve this objective, Union Government in 2015 launched Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) and is being implemented by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs across the country.
The PMAY-U guidelines provide flexibility to the States for appraising and approving project proposals based on demand assessed by them. The States frame the project proposals and after approval from the concerned State Level Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee submit the proposals to the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs for Central assistance.
As recommended by the State Level Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee the Union Ministry has included 80 cities/towns of Jammu and Kashmir in the Housing For All Mission for Central assistance, sources informed.
As per the official data as on July 25, 2018, the copy of which is available with EXCELSIOR, an amount of Rs 230.05 crore has been approved for Jammu and Kashmir by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.
Of this, an amount of Rs 71.59 crore has been released to the State for implementation of PMAY-U. However, State has utilized only Rs 9.94 crore so far, which itself is an indication of slackness in the implementation of the scheme aimed at ensuring housing for all by 2022.
As far as physical progress is concerned, Union Ministry has accorded sanction for the construction of 14,649 houses in the identified cities/towns of Jammu and Kashmir. However, 5400 houses have been grounded for construction so far and only 806 have been completed during the past three years.
Expressing concern over slackness in the implementation of scheme, sources said, “keeping in view dismal progress during past three years, whether the concerned authorities will be able to ensure construction of 14,649 sanctioned houses in remaining four years remains a million dollar question”.
“The dilly-dallying approach in implementation of scheme is notwithstanding the fact that Union Ministry is frequently corresponding with the concerned authorities in the State particularly State Level Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee and laying thrust on giving necessary impetus to the implementation”, sources further said.
They further said, “the slackness in implementation of PMAY-U is also a reflecting on the performance of State Level Committee, which otherwise is supposed to play key role in achieving the objectives of the scheme in the specified time-frame”.
It is pertinent to mention here that scheme has four components-in-situ slum re-development, credit linked subsidy scheme, affordable housing in partnership with public or private sector and beneficiary-led individual house constructions and covers economically weaker sections/low income group, middle income group-I and middle income group-II.
Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has recently extended the benefits of Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme for middle income group till March 31, 2019 to bring more facilities under the purview of PMAY-U and also increased the eligible carpet area from up to 120 square metre to up to 160 square metre for middle income group-I and from up to 150 square metre to up to 200 square metre for middle income group-II.
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