NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has embarked upon one of the most ambitious programmes undertaken in the world for Urban renaissance for rejuvenating and transforming Indian cities through a number of initiatives including sanctioning of 68.5 lakh houses for construction under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in urban areas.
PRADHAN MANTRI AWAS YOJANA (URBAN) – PMAY(U) – Housing for All (HFA)
PMAY (U) is a Mission to provide housing for all by 2022 and is being implemented from June, 2015. It provides central assistance to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and other implementing agencies through States/UTs for in-situ Rehabilitation of existing slum dwellers using land as a resource with private participation; Credit Linked Subsidy; Affordable Housing in Partnership and Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction/enhancement.
Under the PMAY(U), the total investment involved is Rs 3,56,397 Crores.. Out of the approved total central assistance of Rs 1,00,275 crore, Rs 33,455 crores have already been released to States/UTs as on 10.12.2018. Interest subsidy of Rs 6,943.95 crore on housing loans has been credited directly to 3,14,703 beneficiaries under CLSS(Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme).
So far, more than 68.5 Lakh houses have been approved for funding under the Mission. 35.67 lakh houses have been grounded for construction of which 12.45 lakh houses have been completed. The Ministry is optimistic that the States/UTs would submit project proposals at the earliest . This would enable sanction of validated demand of 1 Crore houses well before 2020 so that construction activities can be completed to provide “Housing for all by 2022”.Figures for 2018-19 are as on 10.12.2018
To fast track the construction of sanctioned houses, the Ministry has identified 24 new technologies for mass housing construction and further issued schedule of rates for 11 new construction technologies and building materials for adoption among States/UTs. In addition, the Ministry is also organizing Global Housing Technology Challenge (GHTC) to co-opt internationally acclaimed rapid mass housing construction technologies and to help States/UTs to construct sanctioned houses under PMAY(U) to address housing shortage in the urban areas by 2022.
A National Urban Housing Fund for Rs. 60,000 crores has been set up for raising Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR) in phases for the rapid implementation of PMAY (U). A sum of Rs. 8,000 Cr. was mobilised under this fund in FY 2017-18. In FY 2018-19 approval has been secured to raise Rs. 25,000 crore under this mechanism out of which a sum of Rs. 5050 crore has been already raised and disbursed to the States/UTs and CNAs. This process of raising resources through EBR ensures that there will be unhindered availability of resources for PMAY(U).
The Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) was established in National Housing Bank (NHB) as announced by the Hon’ble Union Finance Minister in the General Budget for 2018-19. The objective of the fund is to improve the affordability of the target group to own their homes. The corpus of the Fund will be 10,000 crores and will be contributed by Scheduled Commercial Banks as allocated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The first tranche of 2,500 crores was received by NHB in August, 2018 & it has disbursed the entire amount of 2,500 crores by 30-11-2018. The next tranche of 2,500 crores is expected to be received by NHB by 31.12.2018.
The huge investment of 3.6 Lakh crore in housing sector is providing more job opportunities in construction and allied sectors with the help of induced effect and contributing to overall health of the economy.