PMAY Urban delivered 50 lakh homes to beneficiaries in 5 years, says Hardeep Singh Puri

                In line with the objective of Housing for All 2022, the government’s Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) has so far sanctioned around 1.13 crore houses for its beneficiaries, out of which over 83 lakh houses are 
grounded and around 50 lakhs have been completed and delivered to beneficiaries, said Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs.

The houses sanctioned so far under this mission involve an investment of Rs 7.35 lakh crore with central government assistance of Rs 1.81 lakh crore. As of now, over Rs 1 lakh crore of central assistance has already been 
released.

“JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission of previous government) had delivered 8 lakh homes in 10 years and we have already delivered over 6 times and this will continue to grow,” Puri said. “In few
months we will be able to turn around and say that we have delivered 1.13 crore houses through four different verticals and that is a fantastic achievement.”

Puri attributed the success of the mission to its robust financial model including Direct Benefit Transfer, use of information technology for real time monitoring and technological innovation, additional funding through extra
budgetary resources over and above budgetary allocations.

For sustained funding support to keep the pace of construction activities, over and above budgetary support, a corpus of Rs 60,000 crore was mobilized under National Urban Housing Fund (NUHF) wherein Rs 43,000 Cr has
already been drawn. Affordable Housing Fund of Rs 20,000 crore are also being utilized in the last 3 years.

Affordable Rental Housing Complexes

The government’s Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs) scheme under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana - Urban (PMAY- U) has received robust responses with proposals for over 80,000 ARHC from public and private
entities in 17 states and union territories (UTs).

Under the model 1 of this scheme, a total of 2,588 houses have been made operational in Chandigarh and Surat and request for proposals are issued for 6,649 houses across other States.

In response to the reverse migration following the Covid19 outbreak last year, the Union cabinet had approved the ARHCs scheme to provide budget rental accommodation to poor and migrant workers in urban areas. This is 
estimated to benefit more than 350,000 people.

Under the first model of this scheme, existing vacant government-funded housing complexes will be converted into ARHCs, and offered to concessionaires for 25 years to rent out, while through the second model,
special incentives will be offered to private and public entities to develop such housing complexes on their own available vacant land.

In the second round of this scheme, expression of interest has been issued for shortlisting of additional entities with the last date as June 30.

Investment under ARHCs is expected to create 11.74 crore person days of employment with 3.89 crore direct and 7.84 crore indirect in nature. In terms of jobs, it works out to be a total of 4.19 1akh with 1.39 lakh direct and 
2.80 lakh indirect jobs.

Puri was speaking at a virtual event organised by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) to commemorate 6 years of the three urban missions including Smart Cities Mission (SCM), Atal Mission for Urban 
Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U). These missions were launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on June 25, 2015


SMART CITIES
Of the total proposed projects under the Smart Cities Mission (SCM), 5,924 projects worth Rs 1,78,500 crore or 87% by value have been tendered so far. Work orders for 5,236 projects, 101% by number, worth Rs 1,46,125 
crore or 71% by value have been issued. Over 2,665 projects worth Rs 45,080 crore have also been fully completed and are operational as on June 23, 2021. A total of 212 projects worth Rs 24,964 crore have been completed 
with geographical spread across 57 cities.

Atal Mission for Rejuvenation & Urban Transformation (AMRUT)

Under the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation & Urban Transformation (AMRUT), the first focused national water mission, 105 lakh household water tap connections and 78 lakh sewer connections have been provided so far.

Overall fund allocation for this mission is Rs 1 lakh crore including central share of Rs 50,000 crore. State action plans amounting to Rs 77,640 crore for basic infrastructure projects were approved, against which projects worth 
Rs 79,772 crore have been grounded. So far, work worth Rs 52,477 crores has been carried out.

The government has also made the Online Building Permission System (OBPS) with integration with internal and external agencies operational in 2,465 towns including 452 AMRUT cities. India’s rank in Ease of Doing
Business (EODB) in construction permits has jumped to 27 in World Bank’s Report (DBR)-2020 from 181 in 2018.

Source: The Economic Times