In Lucknow, Modi targets SP for obstructing housing project

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 5

Hitting out at the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) government in Uttar Pradesh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today alleged that it had no interest in constructing houses for the poor and instead created hindrances in the implementation of the central housing scheme.

He said that before 2017, “18,000 houses were approved for Uttar Pradesh for construction under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), but not even 18 houses were built by the previous government.”

“There was money, there was sanction but those who were running the government were creating hindrance as they did not want to construct houses,” the PM said.

On the other hand, the Yogi Adityanath government has “completed nine lakh houses under the scheme and 14 lakh are under construction,” Modi said, reeling out comparative figures.

He was speaking at the Indira Gandhi Pratisthan in Lucknow after inaugurating ‘Azadi@75-New Urban India: Transforming Urban Landscape’, a conference-cum-expo.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri were also present.

Modi said his government had made three crore poor families lakhpati under the central housing scheme by providing them with houses.

“More than 1.13 crore housing units have been approved in cities and, out of these, more than 50 lakh houses have already been built and handed over to the poor,” he said, adding before 2014 only 13 lakh houses were approved under the programme.

He laid foundation stones of 75 urban development projects under the Smart Cities Mission and AMRUT and digitally handed over keys of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U) houses to 75,000 beneficiaries.

The Prime Minister said that under the central scheme, women had been given property rights, not husbands or sons.

The Prime Minister asked the nine lakh beneficiaries of the PMAY in UP to light two diyas on Diwali. “If two diyas are lit in every house, 18 lakh diyas will be lit on Diwali. In Ayodhya, there is a plan to light 7.5 lakh diyas. It will make Lord Ram happy,” he said.

The death of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri found no mention in the Prime Minister’s 35-minute speech.

Adityanath, who also spoke at the event, didn’t mention the Lakhimpur Kheri incident either.

Opinions page: Lakhimpur Kheri outrage shifts political discourse