A recent working paper by the policy think tank Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) highlighted a number of problems with the union government’s flagship affordable urban housing scheme, including long delays, inadequate subsidies that force beneficiaries to seek out high-interest loans from non-institutional sources, and minimal slum redevelopment.
PM Narendra Modi’s Union cabinet only approved PMAY-U 2.0’s details on Friday. Through the program, an additional 10 million homes will be constructed; this is regarded as the PM’s signature initiative. As of 2015, about 8.55 million houses have been delivered to beneficiaries under PMAY, making it one of the largest housing programs in the world. Approximately 11.8 million dwellings have been sanctioned.
The program was initially divided into four verticals, or sub-schemes: Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS), In-Situ Slum Redevelopment (ISSR), Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP), and Beneficiary Led Construction/Enhancing (BLC). According to the report, BLC is the main factor influencing the scheme’s size, contributing 62% of all punishments. Based on data as of January 2024, of the remaining dwellings, 15% are sanctioned under the AHP category and 2% are sanctioned under the ISSR category.
Following the pandemic in 2020, the government announced the creation of an additional vertical known as assisted rental housing complexes (ARHC), which is still in its infancy at 0.2%. The newly created ISS (interest subsidy program) vertical will now take the place of the CLSS sub-scheme, which was withdrawn in 2022.
According to the researchers, as of May 2024, 30%, or 3.6 million, of the authorized homes under BLC, AHP, and ISSR were still being built, while 0.4 million more had not yet seen the beginning of construction.
Source: Hindustan Times
