TAG: GS 2: GOVERNANCE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
THE CONTEXT: The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has announced that the PMAY-U scheme will be extended until December 2024, incorporating new features based on the lessons learned over the past nine years of its implementation.
EXPLANATION:
- The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) [PMAY (Urban)], launched in 2015, aims to provide affordable housing for the urban poor.
- The PMAY (Urban) mission addresses the urban housing shortage among the poor and middle-income groups, including slum dwellers, by ensuring a pucca (permanent) house for all eligible urban households.
- The extension of the scheme till December 2024 emphasizes the government’s commitment to continuing support for urban housing needs.
Key Features of the Revamp
- The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs highlighted that the revamp will focus on:
- Ensuring timely reach to beneficiaries who have signed up for the scheme, avoiding delays in assistance.
- Introducing new features based on the operational learnings of the past nine years to improve the scheme’s effectiveness.
- The Ministry has also announced a scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Investment for the fiscal years 2022-23 and 2023-24.
- This scheme aims to:
- Improve and speed up the basic urban planning ecosystem in cities.
- Incentivize states to create an enabling environment for affordable housing through favorable bye-laws and policy adoption, especially for built-up areas up to 66 square meters.
- The scheme also incentivizes projects for in-situ slum rehabilitation.
- Notable progress has been made in states like Gujarat and Odisha, which have undertaken substantial work in this area.
- Approximately 5,00,000 dwelling units have been constructed in the last four to five years in states such as Gujarat, Haryana, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh.
- In the fiscal year 2023-24 alone, around 44,000 dwelling units have been constructed in five states: Assam, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Rajasthan.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY):
- The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) was launched in 2015 as a flagship program aimed at providing “Housing for All” by 2022.
- The two basic components of the scheme are Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) (PMAY-U) for the urban poor and Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (Gramin) (PMAY-G or PMAY-R) for the rural poor.
- It encompasses both urban and rural areas, with a focus on addressing the housing needs of economically weaker sections and low-income groups.
- Under PMAY, various verticals are designed to cater to different segments of the population, including in-situ slum redevelopment, affordable housing partnerships, and beneficiary-led construction.
- Objectives of the PMAY Scheme are:
- Rehabilitation of Slum Dwellers: One of the primary objectives of PMAY is to rehabilitate slum dwellers by involving private developers in the process.
- Promotion of Affordable Housing: PMAY aims to promote affordable housing for weaker sections through Credit Linked Subsidy Schemes (CLSS) and partnerships with public and private sectors.
- In-Situ Slum Redevelopment (ISSR): The scheme targets the redevelopment of slums in their existing locations to provide better housing conditions for residents.
- Subsidy for Beneficiary-led Construction (BLC): PMAY provides subsidies to beneficiaries for constructing their own houses.
Performance of the PMAY Scheme
- Despite the initial target of achieving “Housing for All” by 2022, the scheme has faced challenges in implementation and has been extended until December 31, 2024.
- However, the progress has been inadequate, with significant shortfalls in the number of houses constructed compared to the actual demand.
- The scheme has fallen short of its objectives, with an estimated shortage of around 20 million houses in rural areas and three million in urban centers.
- The in-situ slum redevelopment (ISSR) vertical, which addresses a critical need in cities, has particularly underperformed, with only a fraction of the sanctioned houses completed.
- Several factors contribute to the challenges faced by PMAY, including land acquisition issues, inadequate community involvement in planning, and discrepancies between city master plans and PMAY objectives.
- Additionally, reliance on large capital-intensive solutions and limited government contribution to investment expenditure pose significant hurdles.
