Aman Sharma, New Delhi In an
unexpected move , the Central Government has asked the Telangana government to refund the amount of Rs 190 crore given to it to build houses for the poor in villages under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in 2016-17. . The Center took this step when the Telangana government led by Chandrasekhar Rao refused to give the Central Government fresh information regarding the progress of the implementation of the scheme. In 2016-17, 70,674 houses were allotted under this scheme to Telangana and an amount of Rs 190.78 crore was released as the first installment for them.
ET has looked at the details of the Empowered Committee’s October 13 meeting in which Telangana was told about the central government’s decision. According to the details of the meeting, the Rural Development Secretary also said in the meeting that even after two years, Telangana has not adopted a transparent process for allotment of houses under PMAYG and has also not updated the progress on HousingSoft. . HousingSoft is an online portal where updates on work progress are made. It has been decided that Telangana will refund Rs 190.78 crore to the ministry as it has not shown any progress in the PMAY-G, ” he said.
Not only this, it was also decided in the meeting that the target of 70,674 houses allotted to Telangana will be given to the well performing states / needy states so that under the ministry PMAY-G to build one crore houses across the country by 2018-19 Help to meet the target. Telangana is yet to ask for the second installment of the fund set for PMAY-G for 2016-17. According to the portal of the ministry, Telangana has not built a single house under PMAY-G, whereas under the scheme, about 52 lakh houses have been built across the country so far.
A senior ministry official said that the Telangana government is actually promoting its state housing scheme. There is a plan to provide two-bedroom houses to the homeless poor in this scheme. He said, ‘This work is also being done through a system with a contractor and a financial package bigger than PMAY-G is being provided for the houses, whereas in PMAY-G the beneficiary has to build a house for himself.’ He said that the eligible beneficiaries under the PMAYG scheme have been covered in the scheme of the state government, but it is necessary to inform the state on behalf of the state.
Homeless and one-room kutcha houses are considered beneficiaries in PMAYG. The government official said, “The Empowered Committee may have taken this decision, but if Telangana provides us with official figures, the situation will remain the same”.
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