Housing schemes go for a toss

Hyderabad: The much-hyped housing scheme for the poor launched by the Union government as well as the State government failed to achieve the targets in Telangana during the last three years.

In 2018-19, the total number of houses constructed under the PM Awas Yojana (PMAY, rural) was zero against the target of 95,000.

Under PMAY – Urban, 9,646 housing units were constructed against the target of 1.59 lakh in the same year. The state government is blaming the Centre for this poor performance.

It says that the Centre did not release funds in time and hence it could not achieve the targets despite submitting utilisation certificates.

Even in 2017-18, the targets were not achieved. Only 7,738 units (against the target of 95,833) were completed under PMAY – Rural and under Urban scheme.

It is learnt that the Centre did not release funds as it was not satisfied with the information submitted by the state government and had asked for more details regarding utilisation of funds.

Unless the state government submits all the details and replies to the queries raised by the Centre, the funds will not be released.

Then unless funds are released the state cannot take up the construction activity and meet the targets.

With regard to the state housing scheme, the government constructed only 2,884 units of two-bedroom houses as against the target of 60,856 units till March 2019.

The construction of another 20,000 houses under 2 BHK scheme was at different stages. The state housing officials attributed various reasons for this slowdown in the scheme.

It claims that the main obstacle in implementing the highly ambitious programme was non-availability of land.

The government has been earmarking not less than Rs 10,000 crore every year since 2017-18 for the 2 BHK scheme.

The private agencies have come forward in some areas to construct the houses on non-profit basis. The major hurdle before the government is to acquire the lands.

In some cases, lands were identified but the agencies back out as the profit margin is very small.

In all, 22,052 houses were constructed, out of the target of 4.60 lakh, under three housing schemes sponsored by the state and Central governments during the last two years.

This year, the target is 2 lakh houses and the works are yet to be grounded.