Paani, Bijli & Makaan: The status of Modi’s Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana

GUWAHATI: The ambitious scheme that seeks to provide ‘pucca’ houses to 2 crore people by 2022 overlooks smaller areas in the state and the northeastern region as a whole.

The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or PMAY is a scheme that was launched by the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi on June 25, 2015. Under the scheme, Modi had promised the construction of 2 crore houses in the country starting from 2015 until 2022. 

This scheme is supposed to benefit homeless citizens, poor urban people and citizens who belong to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Lower Income Group (LIG) categories.

The mission is ambitious where Narendra Modi had envisioned “Housing for All” as the country completes 75 years of its independence in 2022. 

In his address to the joint session of Parliament on June 9, 2014, the then President of India, Pranab Mukherjee had said, “By the time the nation completes 75 years of independence, every family in India will have a pucca house with water connection, toilet facilities, 24x7 electricity supply and access.” 

The scheme seeks to address the housing requirement of the urban poor including slum dwellers by implementing four main components. Firstly, the government wants to rehabilitate slum dwellers with the participation of private developers using land as a resource. Secondly, it wants to promote affordable housing for the weaker sections of society with the help of credit linked subsidies. Thirdly, the government wants to implement this affordable housing idea in partnership with public and private sectors and fourthly, it will provide subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction and enhancement, according to the scheme’s official state government website. 

According to a physical progress report by the Ministry of Rural Development, the ministry had set a total target for the construction of 99,94,963 houses, and in an overwhelming number, about 1,16,70,247 beneficiary households across the country were registered as part of this scheme. 

Out of that, the construction of 76,62,411 houses has been completed since 2015, according to the physical progress report. Thus, approximately 34 percent of the work, i.e. providing pucca houses to 40,07,836 beneficiaries with working water and electricity connection is yet to be completed before 2022. 

In India, the three states that have the highest number of household beneficiaries registered are Madhya Pradesh (13,99,084), West Bengal (13,97,474) and Uttar Pradesh (12,82,616) which saw the completion of the construction and houses by almost 85 to 90 percent.
 
For ease of managing this yojana, the government has set up multi-level functions. The departmental structure for the scheme is headed by the Principal Secretary of Urban Development, Department of Assam who guides the Mission Director of the PMAY HFA, Urban. The State Level Nodal Agency (SLNA), State Level Technical Cell (SLTC), District Level Technical Cell (DLTC) and City Level Technical Cell (CLTC), are all supposed to work under the aforementioned in tandem to carry out the provisions of the scheme. 

The demand survey for the preparation of the HFAPoA (Housing for All Plan of Action) for Guwahati city was done by the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) and a total of 56,656 beneficiaries were identified in the GMC area. This demand survey was carried out by the NGOs enlisted to GMC for solid waste management in association with the councilors and the sabha members. 

In-state calibre of PMAY Yojana: Smaller areas overlooked 

In Assam, the yojana has been applicable in 32 districts of Assam. The most number of household beneficiaries - 17,661 - have been registered in Dhemaji district and the construction and inspection of 14,817 houses have been completed, which leaves 14 percent of the work yet to be completed before 2022. 

The least number of household beneficiaries were registered from Charaideo - 1,223. Out of these, 897 houses have been constructed and inspected, which leaves the remaining 326 houses (26 percent of the work) yet to be constructed and inspected before giving them to the beneficiaries.

Kamrup (Rural) has 12,557 registered beneficiaries and the work has been complete for 9,822 of them. While in Kamrup (Metro), 1,991 household beneficiaries have registered, out of which, 1,525 homes have been constructed and inspected.
 
In an interesting finding, while bigger areas of the state such as Dhemaji, Kamrup(R), Kamrup (M), Barpeta and Dhubri have seen significant effort and indulgence from the government, smaller areas of the state have been somewhat left out.
 
Areas such as Cachar, Goalpara, Hailakandi, Hojai, Karbi Anglong, North Cachar Hills and Sonitpur are lagging. Even though the areas have registered beneficiaries, the progress on the completion and inspection of the houses remains to be less than 50 percent. 

For example, in Cachar, 14,659 household beneficiaries are registered, but only 5,518 houses have been completed and inspected, which leaves the construction and inspection of 9,141 houses to be completed before 2022. Similarly, in Hojai, 8,218 household beneficiaries have been registered but till now, the construction and inspection of only 2,535 houses has been done. 

Northeastern states left behind again 

In terms of the whole northeastern region, Assam has the highest number of household beneficiaries registered at 2,59,814 with 1,57,302 of those houses being constructed and inspected. Arunachal Pradesh, on the other hand, has the least number of beneficiaries at 3,226 with only 79 houses completed, leaving the completion of 3,147 houses, which means that the construction of over 95 percent of the project in the state is undone. 

In a general consensus, northeastern states except Assam and Meghalaya have not seen much contribution from the government in this yojana. For example, while Meghalaya has 21,291 household beneficiaries registered, only 6,415 houses have been completed and inspected. Similarly, while Manipur has 15,259 registered beneficiaries, only 5,476 houses have been fully constructed and inspected. 

In Nagaland, no houses have been constructed so far since 2015 even though the state has 9,128 registered household beneficiaries.

District data (PMAY)

Top 3 PMAY beneficiaries (in terms of households registered)

PMAY in the Northeast