On the occasion of “Awaas Diwas” celebration,Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and Food Processing, Govt of India interacted with Rural Development Ministers and officials of the States/ Union Territories.

Awaas Diwas / Awaas Week is not just a day to celebrate a scheme, but a day to connect with crores of rural households, who have been greatly benefited by this scheme or in the Permanent Wait List (PWL) to receive the benefit of the scheme.

Highlights

    • The Rural Housing Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) was launched by the  Prime Minister of India on 20thNovember 2016 at Agra, Uttar Pradesh.

    • To commemorate the launch of PMAY-G, which aims to provide “Housing for All” by 2022, it was decided to celebrate 20th November every year as “Awaas Diwas”.

    • The program envisages the completion of 2.95 crore PMAY-G houses with all basic amenities by the year 2022.

    • In the 1stphase of the scheme i.e. from 2016-17 to 2018-19, a target for construction of 1 crore pucca houses were set.

    • In the 2nd phase of the scheme starting from 2019-20 to 2021-22, the target of construction of the remaining 1.95 crore houses has been set.

    • As on date, a total of 1.75 Crore PMAY-G houses has been sanctioned and 1.20 Crore houses have been completed against the allocated cumulative target of 2.26 Crore houses.

    • Under PMAY-G with the introduction of certain implementation reforms, the Government aims at maintaining transparency and enhancing the speed of house construction, maintaining quality, ensuring timely release of funds to beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), technical assistance to beneficiaries, offering bouquet of region specific house designs to the beneficiaries, stringent monitoring through MIS-Awaas Soft and Awaas App.

    • Activities to be taken up during the celebration of Awaas Diwas/ Awaas Week include:

        ◦ Sensitization of beneficiaries about PMAY-G

        ◦ Organizing visits of the beneficiaries to the sites with demonstration houses.

        ◦ Organizing interaction of PMAY-G beneficiaries with local bankers to facilitate a loan to beneficiaries of PMAY-G.

        ◦ Organizing Bhoomi Pujan, Grih Pravesh, etc.

        ◦ Any other activities as it deems appropriate during the Awaas Diwas/ Awaas week celebrations.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants. The views expressed here are personal.)