NEW DELHI: Two schemes launched by Narendra Modi in 2015 as the PM Awas Yojana (PMAY) for housing to all by 2022 are faltering, with the rural scheme not even achieving 50 per cent of the target. Officials say it is difficult to achieve the targets. The Centre is blaming the state governments for the schemes failing.
Despite the scheme failing year after year, the Centre has set the target of building 78 lakh rural houses, the highest annual target for the year 2021-22.
The Rural Development Ministry has written to the states to speed up work by expeditious allotment of land to the landless to enable the Centre to provide money to them to build own house. It attributes the slow progress to the Covid-19 pandemic and the Assembly elections during which the scheme has to be suspended.
As against the target of constructing 2.95 crore dwellings in the rural areas, an official record shows only 1.35 crore built so far. The ministry has blamed 13 states for the slow progress of the scheme. These include Maharashtra, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. Even the BJP-ruled states like Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and the centrally-administered Jammu and Kashmir lacked in achieving the targets.
