March 1 deadline looms but PMAY-G lagging

NEW DELHI: The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana- Gramin (PMAY-G) is in doldrums with over 12 lakh pending houses and land being provided to only 12 per cent of the beneficiaries even as the March 1 deadline for 1 crore houses fast approaches, a rural development ministry study has revealed.

Of the total 4.72 lakh beneficiaries identified across the country, only 56,694 have been allotted land. States like Goa, Kerala and West Bengal have drawn a blank in terms of allotment of land to beneficiaries. None of the 1,317 beneficiaries in Goa, 5,712 in Kerala and 34,884 in West Bengal have been allotted land for construction of houses under the scheme.

Among the best performing states in terms of land allotment are Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. While Sikkim has a 100 per cent success rate in allotting lands to 15 beneficiaries, Madhya Pradesh has managed to achieve 90 per cent success rate with 4,083 beneficiaries. Uttar Pradesh, by virtue of allotting lands to 784 of 1023 beneficiaries, has a success rate of 77 per cent.

Ministry officials say that the lag has been caused due to delay in relay of information. “These schemes are being implemented with full force in some of the most remote areas of the country. Hence, it takes time for the information regarding the progress to be collated. Once the numbers are updated, we will be able to see that the scheme is doing phenomenally well across the country,” an official said.

However, keeping in view the lagging progress of the scheme, the secretary of the rural development has written to the rural development secretaries of states asking them to submit the status report and identify the weaklings in the implementation of the scheme. The ministry will also hold a performance review meeting on Wednesday. “The agenda of the meeting is to make sure that the schemes are better implemented. Once the guidelines are formed, the pace of the work will increase manifold,” another official said.