MUMBAI: Aiming to give relief to beneficiaries of the Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY) in the state and to bring down construction costs, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday announced that up to five brass of sand will be provided free of cost by the government to build houses under PMAY. An official from CMO said, “Twelve lakh PMAY houses currently under construction in the state will benefit from this announcement.
Fadnavis has instructed all the district collectors and tehsildars to implement this scheme for beneficiaries. Ahead of the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, Fadnavis has begun a dialogue with the beneficiaries about central and state government schemes and on Wednesday, he spoke to PMAY beneficiaries through ‘Loksamvad’ (public dialogue). Wardha Kottewar from Wardha and Javed Shaikh from Fulewada in Gadchiroli district had said they were facing problems in procuring sand for constructing their houses under the PMAY.
A senior official said that the CM will hold bimonthly talks with the beneficiaries of govt schemes through ‘Loksamvad’ . Earlier, Fadnavis had initiated the ‘Mi Mukhyamantri Boltoy’ programme, to connect directly with the masses. However, the programme stopped airing in November 2017. An official from the CMO said, the aim of ‘Loksamvad’ was to ascertain the benefits accruing to the needy from government schemes and the problems faced by the people in obtaining these benefits and the improvements needed to overcome these difficulties.
Though it was difficult to speak all 598 participants in Wednesday’s programme, the CM patiently heard them out and replied to their queries,” the official said. Officials said, the beneficiaries told CM that the state government schemes were effectively reaching the common people in a transparent manner, as subsidies were credited directly to their bank accounts.
They claimed that their dream of beautiful and pucca houses were being fulfilled by the government’s schemes.
Replying to a query by Asha Jamjod from Amravati, the CM said discussions were on with the central government on the waiver of fees charged for the designs of the house to be constructed.