Rural poor housing scheme target unmet

Having struggled to meet its target of providing 2.95 crore pucca houses to rural poor under its ambitious PM Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) by March 2024, the Centre has further enhanced it by 2 crore and aims to build 4.95 crore houses by 2029, and to achieve this ambitious figure, the eligibility criteria has been tweaked by increasing the monthly income of beneficiaries from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000 per month.

On December 27, 2024, Deputy Director General of the Rural Development Ministry Gaya Prasad wrote to all states to start household surveys on priority to identify the actual number of beneficiaries on the basis of the changed income criteria and enhanced target of houses to be provided under PMAY-G, asking them to complete the exercise by March 31, 2025.

The Centre has also launched an app called Awaas through which intended beneficiaries can conduct their self-survey and also apply for the scheme.

“It has been decided to start the survey using the Awaas app for identification of eligible households,” Prasad wrote to the states’ chief secretaries in the letter.

The PMAY-G was launched on April 1, 2016, promising to provide 2.95 crore households for rural poor by March 2024. However, as on January 14, 2025, only 2.68 crore houses had been completed against 3.67 crore beneficiaries who have been registered under the scheme. In other words, there is a shortfall of almost 1 crore households (99,04,043 to be precise) between registered beneficiaries and the actual number of houses completed till date.

The Union Cabinet on August 9, 2024, had taken the decision to enhance the target of the scheme as well as the income criterion.

The new target of giving 4.95 crore houses by 2029 coincides with the next Lok Sabha elections, even as the existing target of providing 2.95 crore houses by March 2024 remains unfulfilled.

As per the official data, till January 14, 2025, out of the 3,67,87,303 registered beneficiaries under PMAY-G, the number of houses sanctioned are 3,22,93,265, while the number of houses completed are 2,68,83,260.

Incidentally, on July 28, 2018, Prime Minister Modi had said every Indian will have a house by 2022 while addressing a function.