The UT Administration had written to the Ministry of Home Affairs, seeking 104 acres of land in Chandigarh for the construction of 10,132 flats under the scheme. (Representational/Express photo by Gajendra Yadav)The construction of the flats under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY) in Chandigarh is delayed as the Chandigarh Housing Board has sought permission to acquire land priced at Rs 30 crore per acre for a sum of Rs 3 crore per acre for the project, said the housing board officials, on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the urban missions- PMAY, AMRUT and Smart Cities, on Tuesday.
An official of the housing board said, “We have sought the land as per rate of Rs 3 crore per acre. If the actual land cost is seen as per the collector rates, one acre land is around Rs 30 crore. That is why this delay, because we have been asking the land on highly nominal rates.”
The UT Administration had written to the Ministry of Home Affairs, seeking 104 acres of land in Chandigarh for the construction of 10,132 flats under the scheme.
However, even almost four years after the schemes were announced, the Chandigarh Housing Board has not been able to acquire land for it, making the construction of these flats a distant dream for all the 10,132 eligible beneficiaries of the scheme in the city. The beneficiaries, who were identified a detailed survey, have been hoping for a flat for at least two years now.
Over two years back, 1.27 lakh applicants in Chandigarh had applied for a flat under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna (PMAY)-Housing for All (Urban). After a survey, which included door-to-door verification, the housing board had initially found only 444 applicants eligible for flats under the scheme, and it was decided that they will be allotted flats in the already constructed 4960 flats at Maloya locality in Chandigarh.
However, the Centre directed the housing board to review all the rejected cases again, following which physical verification of the rejected applicants were done. Teams were constituted by the housing board, and finally, 10,000 applicants were found eligible under the scheme.
Being a state-level nodal agency for the implementation of this mission, the Chandigarh Housing Board was asked to carry out a demand survey for EWS, LIG and MIG households in the urban areas of Chandigarh. The Centre has launched Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Housing for All (Urban) to provide affordable housing to all by 2022.
