The Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Bhupesh Baghel, has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi give priority to the remaining beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allocate targets of houses for the beneficiaries remaining on the waiting list under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in the state.
In a letter written to the PM on July 30, he also requested the allocation of targets for 8,19,999 beneficiary families identified under the Awas Plus survey.
Baghel on Wednesday shared the letter on Twitter.
At present, 18,75,585 beneficiaries are listed in the permanent wait list (PWL) for rural areas under the PMAY based on the Socio-Economic Caste Census-2011 (SECC-2011), he said.
Of these, 11,76,146 beneficiaries were allocated houses between 2016 to 2023. The construction of about 73.5 per cent (8,63,567) of allocated houses has been completed. Thus, 6,99,439 beneficiaries are yet to be covered, Baghel said.
Additionally, the target of 7,81,999 houses allocated for 2021-22 to the state was withdrawn by the Centre, he said, requesting the PM to reallocate it.
The state government had earlier written to the Centre on August 18, 2022, seeking reallocation of this target in installments, but the Centre's response was still awaited, he said.
In 2022-23, a target of only 79,000 houses was allocated to Chhattisgarh, Baghel added.
Despite the challenging circumstances during the Covid-19 pandemic, Chhattisgarh was a leading state in the country in terms of completion of houses and its execution of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana was better compared to the estimated annual budget expenditure, the chief minister said.
The state government has allocated Rs 3,238 crore in the 2023-24 budget to complete 2,36,813 approved houses for the years 2020-21 and 2022-23, out of which Rs 674.75 crore has been disbursed, he said.
Due to the non-allocation of targets for 6,99,439 remaining houses in the PWL, the state government could not issue approvals and even the allocation of houses to 8,19,999 beneficiaries under the Awas Plus scheme could not be granted, Baghel said in the letter.
He requested the prime minister to allocate targets for the remaining houses in the existing PWL and also for Awas Plus beneficiaries so that the objective of the scheme can be achieved.
According to officials, the identification of beneficiaries under PMAY-Gramin is based on the housing deprivation parameters and exclusion criteria prescribed under SECC-2011, due to verification by the respective Gram Sabhas and completion of an appellate process.
The government conducted an Awas Plus survey from January 2018 to March 2019 to identify those who claimed to have been left out under the 2011 SECC. The data of beneficiaries captured through Awas Plus is utilized to fill the gaps between the overall target and eligible beneficiaries made available from SECC Permanent Wait List, officials said.