On August 7, alleged fact-checker and co-founder of propaganda website Alt News, Muhammad Zubair posted a tweet with a 2018 video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in which PM Modi had promised houses for all under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY) by 2022. Sharing the video, he wrote, “Few days left to get this promise fulfilled.”
In 2018, addressing a rally in Rajasthan, PM Modi promised housing for all by the time India completes 75 years of Independence. He had said, “I have taken an oath. Every family in India will have a ‘pucca’ house. I have taken an oath that by the time India completes 75 years of Independence, there will no family in India that will not have a house of its own.”
The aim of sharing the video was to depict that the government or PM Modi failed to fulfil the promise he made in 2018. While it is true that there are many families that still do not have the ‘pucca’ houses, Zubair and his ilk may want to check the status of Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana for both urban and rural sectors. Something a fact-checker should have checked and mentioned before sharing the video.
In fact, Zubair’s tweet did make many people check the status of the progress under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana and how Crores of people have got pucca houses under the scheme.
OpIndia checked dashboards of both Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) and Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G). Here is what we found out about the status of the projects.
Status of projects under PMAY-U
First, let’s talk about PMAY-U, which is managed by the Ministry of Urban Development. As per the information provided by the dashboard of PMAY-U, by August 1, there was an overall demand of 112.24 lakhs houses across the country. The government went above and beyond, and the total sanctioned houses are at 122.69 lakhs. So far, 61.77 lakh houses have been completed and delivered under the scheme. Sixteen lakh houses out of them were built using new technologies.
Coming to the cost of the project, the government committed Rs 2.03 lakh crores (approx) for the projects under PMAY-U. So far, Rs 1.20 lakh crores have been released, out of which Rs 1.13 lakh crores have already been spent under the scheme.
Furthermore, the government has also provided Interest Subsidy under the CLSS scheme. So far, the government has contributed Rs 55,095 crores to the scheme to help economically weaker section (EWS) and low-income groups (LIG) to avail loans for housing at an affordable rate.
Status of projects under PMAY-G
PMAY-G is managed by the Ministry of Rural Development. As per the information provided by the PMAY-G dashboard, the ministry had set a target of 2,71,92,795 houses. Total 2,69,85,216 registrations were done and 2,44,64,041 houses were sanctioned under the scheme. So far, 1,93,01,073 houses have been completed and delivered. The government has spent Rs 2.57 lakh crores on the Rural housing project so far.
If we check the year-wise progress of the scheme, approx 42 lakh houses were built in 2016-17. Next year, in 2017-18, approx 31 lakh houses were built, followed by 25 lakh houses in 2018-19, approx 58 lakh houses in 2019-20, approx 43 lakh houses in 2020-21 (Covid pandemic slowed down the progress) and approx 71 lakh in 2021-22. Despite the Covid-19 pandemic and countless hurdles related to land registrations, documentation etc., the central government has built almost two crore houses in the past five years in the Rural sector.
In total, under PMAY for both Urban and Rural, the central government has delivered close to 2.54 crore houses which is definitely not a small number. Even if we consider that each household has only four members, the total number of Indian citizens who got a ‘pucca’ house under this scheme stands at around 10.16 crores. These 2.54 crore families were either living in the open or had a ‘kaccha’ house. Now, because of the housing scheme, they not only have a stable roof on their heads, but the government has also provided them with electricity connection, LPG connection, and other facilities under different schemes.
