New Delhi:
When Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an increase in budget spending for the Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana (PMAY) appropriating around Rs 79,000 crore for the flagship plan, budget documents show that the increase is mainly in the rural part of the plan.
The finance minister said on Wednesday that the allocation to both components of the PMAY – the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (urban) and the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (gramin) – has been increased by 66 percent.
In the budget presented on Wednesday, the government has earmarked Rs 25,103 crore for the urban component of the scheme while Rs 54,487 has been allocated for the rural component, bringing the total to Rs 79,590 crore.
In the latest financial year, Rs 20,000 crore was allocated for PMAY’s urban component, while the revised estimate for expenditure was Rs 28,708 crore. The allocation to PMAY-U under the 2023-24 budget is about 12 percent lower than the revised estimate for the past year.
The revised expenditure estimate for the rural component of the scheme was Rs 48,422 crore, nearly two-and-a-half times more than the original allocation of Rs 20,000 crore.
The increase in allocation of the nationwide component of the scheme compared to last fiscal year’s revised estimate is also about 12 percent. All told, the allocation for PMAY – rural and urban – initially made in the 2022-23 budget was Rs 48,000 crore, bringing the increase announced by the minister to 66 per cent.
However, the revised estimates, which are a semi-annual review of expenditure, pushed the total expenditure to Rs 77,130 crore. And compared to the revised estimate, the increase in allocations this time around is about three percent.
On 19 December last year, the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs had told Rajya Sabha that against the validated demand of 1.12 crore houses, on 12 December 2022, 1.20 crore houses have been approved by the ministry on the basis of of the project proposals submitted by states and union territories.
The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban has been extended to December 31, 2024 for the completion of already sanctioned houses.
The PMAY-G was launched in November 2016 with a target to deliver around three crore pucca homes with basic amenities for all eligible homeless families living there kutcha and dilapidated houses in rural areas by 2024. According to the economic survey submitted to parliament on Tuesday, a total of 2.7 crore houses have been approved and 2.1 crore of them completed by January 6, 2023 under the scheme in rural areas.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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