Extend PMAY-U to cover all deserving, assess needy afresh: House panel report

The panel, chaired by Rajiv Ranjan Singh, noted that when the scheme was launched in 2015, the ministry had estimated the housing shortage of 1.88 crore in 2012-17.

“It [ministry] had further submitted that in India, at the slum decadal growth rate of 34%, the slum households are projected to go up to 18 million. Also, 2 million non-slum urban poor households are proposed to be covered under the Mission. Hence, a total housing shortage envisaged to be addressed through the new mission is 20 million. However, the total validated demand as assessed by states/UTs stands at 1.23 crore,” the report said.

The ministry sanctioned 1.22 crore houses across the country till March 31, 2022, which was its cut-off date. The scheme was then extended from 2021-22 till December 31, 2024, to complete the houses sanctioned. Out of the 1.05 crore houses where the construction had started, 64.33 lakh have been completed.

The panel noted that there was a gap of 67 lakh houses in between the initial assessment and the sanctioned houses. The ministry informed the committee that the initial estimate was just that, an estimate, while the scheme adopted a demand-driven approach. The Committee recommended that the ministry conduct an impact assessment of the scheme to understand the benefits and gaps.

“The ministry, may thereafter, explore the feasibility of either extending the existing scheme with modifications based on impact assessment study or to formulate another such scheme to benefit the urban poor at large so as to achieve the government of India’s objective of housing for all,” the report said.

The panel noted that 60% of the total houses sanctioned were under the beneficiary-led construction (BLC) vertical, where purchasing land had been challenging for the beneficiaries.

The committee was dismayed by the fact that the real challenge was to provide decent housing for the landless urban slum residents, but the in-situ slum redevelopment vertical only sanctioned 4.33 lakh houses against a demand of 14.35 lakh. The progress of this vertical had also been slow, with only 99,000 houses delivered as of December 31, 2022.