PM Awas Yojana moves at slow pace in Muktsar

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Muktsar, December 13

The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban, which offers rehabilitation of slum dwellers using land as a resource through private participation, credit-linked subsidy, affordable housing in partnership, subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction or enhancement, has so far failed to provide benefit to even a single individual in Muktsar.

As per information procured under the RTI Act by a Malout-based RTI activist Sandeep Maluja, as many as 2,856 forms were filled by people under the scheme and 145 of them were selected as genuine beneficiaries.

Further, an amount of Rs 17.35 lakh was transferred into the account of the Municipal Council, Muktsar, in October this year. However, not even a single penny has been given to the beneficiaries till date.

Maluja said, “The fate of the scheme hangs in balance as the authorities concerned have failed to provide the benefit to even a single individual in the past about three-and-a-half year. The situation is same in Malout, Gidderbaha and Bariwala. If the higher-ups in Chandigarh and Delhi don’t intervene, then needy people will not be able to get its benefit.”

On the other hand, Bipan Kumar, Executive Officer (EO), Municipal Council, Muktsar, said, “The matter relates to finance so we have to keep many things in mind before transferring the money into the account of beneficiaries. There are so many conditions, which have to be fulfilled before delivering the monetary benefit on each installment. However, I assure that the benefit will be provided to all genuine applicants.”

Aiming to provide houses to common people across the country, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the ‘Housing for All’ initiative in June 2015 with a target of construction of 2 crore houses by 2022. About 4,000 cities are covered under the scheme.