The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) on Thursday sanctioned construction of 81,757 houses for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in urban areas in seven States with West Bengal topping the list where 27,830 houses in 38 cities will be constructed under the Prime Minister’s Awas Yojna (PMAY) (Urban).
The other States where houses will be constructed under the PMAY are Telangana (22,817 dwellings) in 45 cities Bihar (13,315) in 40 cities, Mizoram (8,922) in six cities, Rajasthan (6,052) in nine cities, Jharkhand (2,337) in 24 cities and Uttarakhand (484) in Dehradun.
“This will entail a total investment of Rs4,076 crore. Of this, the Ministry will provide total Central assistance of Rs1,226 crore at Rs1.50 lakh per house to be built for the benefit of urban poor under the Yojana in the urban areas,” said a senior official from the Ministry of HUPA.
The proposal was approved by an inter-ministerial Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee chaired by Nandita Chatterjee, Secretary (HUPA) after detailed discussions with the seven States and after satisfying itself with availability of land for the proposed projects, the share of States and the beneficiaries. The houses will be built in 163 cities in the seven States.
“Of the total houses sanctioned under the Housing for All initiative of the Government, 58,456 houses will be built under the ‘Beneficary led Construction’ component. Under this, beneficiaries will build new houses on their own land with assistance from Central and State Governments,” the HUPA official added.
Another 23,301 houses will be built under ‘Affordable Housing in Partnership’ component under which State Governments will provide land and the Central Government gives an assistance of Rs1.50 lakh per each beneficiary.
The Government has so far sanctioned a total of 5.07 lakh houses for EWS in 13 States with a total Central assistance of Rs7,519 crore. Under the PMAY, the Government has targeted assisting construction of two crore houses for urban poor in 4,041 statutory urban local bodies in the country.