Bihar requests 13.5 lakh new units under PMAY-G after clearing backlog

Buoyed by the completion of nearly 98.94% of the pending sanctioned units under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramim (PMAY-G) in the state, Bihar’s rural development department (RDD) has sent a fresh requisition to the ministry of rural development to sanction 13.5 lakh additional units for homeless families that were included in the permanent waiting list (PWL) in a survey carried a few years back, a senior official said.

“We have sent a requisition to the union rural development ministry to sanction 13.5 lakh fresh units and are awaiting approval. Once the sanction comes, we will start the construction of the units,” said Pankaj Kumar Pal, secretary, RDD.

The RDD has completed construction of 36.64 lakh dwelling units out of the total 37 lakh sanctioned under PMAY-G from 2016-17 to 2023-24.

PMAY-G is a social welfare scheme for constructing houses to the homeless or those having kutcha houses from the economically weaker sections. The scheme was started in 2015 by replacing the previous Indira Awas Yojana.

Officials said a sum of ₹45049.17 crore has been spent in Bihar under PMAY-G since 2015-16.

The sanctioned units had been pending owing to various factors, including land availability, shortage of construction material and labour availability, officials said. Also, a large number of units were pending since the beneficiaries had migrated to other states and did not care to complete the units despite getting financial assistance.

Each beneficiary under PMAY-G gets ₹1.30 lakh for a dwelling unit, along with labour cost as per rates under rural employment guarantee scheme MNGREGA.

“Beneficiaries under PMAY-G who didn’t have land were given 1 lakh for land purchase by the state government. It helped beneficiaries construct houses in a big way,” said a senior official involved in the scheme implementation.

Earlier, the state government used to give ₹60,000 for purchase of land to beneficiaries of PMAY-G having no land. The amount was revised last year.

Meanwhile, RDD secretary Pal said the union rural development ministry had not sent the target of PMAY-G units for the current financial year (2024-25). “Once it comes, the work would start in a mission mode,” he said.