Min seeks enhanced Central allocation

Pitching for overhauling the rural housing scheme to provide quality and durable dwelling units to rural poor, Rural Development Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh on Friday sought the enhancement of Central allocation for rural houses from `70,000 to `1 lakh in tune with the recent hike for urban houses. 

The Ministry is finalising the guidelines to be rolled out soon to achieve the goal of Housing for All by 2022 wherein nearly 3 crore houses would be built in rural areas in the next seven years.

“The current amount of `70,000 for Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) is insufficient to build a decent and livable house and called for significant enhancement of Central allocation for rural housing scheme in tune with the recent hike for urban houses,” said Singh at a workshop on ‘Affordable Rural Housing Technology’ here.

Two days ago, Cabinet cleared Housing for all 2022 in urban areas promising a Central grant of an average `1 lakh would be available for a house under the slum rehabilitation programme.

Stating that half of the more than 3 crore 35 lakh Indira Awaas units constructed in the last decades were now in a dilapidated condition due to poor quality of construction material used into them, the Minister cautioned the officials not to achieve the target at a superficial level but to provide the beneficiaries with houses that can last upto 40 years. 

He said, the life span of Indira Awaas is not more than ten years and called for better possibilities of procuring steel, cement and bricks at cheaper rates by providing coal at concessional rates to manufacturers of the housing materials. Secretary, Rural Development Ministry, JK Mohapatra said that technology dissemination for rural housing has a distinct class bias and the Centre had failed to roll out appropriate alternative technologies to provide quality houses to the poor.