50 L homes to be built in villages by March next year: Centre

More than 50 lakh homes for the poor will be built in rural areas across the country by March 31 under a central scheme bringing social transformation in villages, the government said today.
Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin) a target of to construct one crore new houses by March 31, 2019 was set. Of these, 51 lakh houses had to be completed by 31st March, 2018, the Rural Development Ministry said in an official statement.
After the launch in 2016, it took a few months to complete the process of beneficiary registration, geo-tagging, account verification etc, the ministry said adding that it used Socio Economic Census of 2011 for selection of beneficiaries.

The homeless and those living in one kuccha room with kuccha roof or two kuccha rooms with kuccha roof are the beneficiaries of this pro-poor PMAY scheme.
The homes are designed by the best of institutions after studying the existing local design typologies and are constructed by beneficiaries as per their need. The payment for construction of the houses is directly transferred into the accounts of beneficiaries, the ministry said.
"The poor are getting safe homes and can live with dignity with facilities like toilet, LPG connection, electricity connection, drinking water facility etc," it said.

To ensure transparency and check corruption, the Centre has set up an online platform where any person can see construction of homes with geo-tagged photographs and complete details of beneficiaries and payments made to them.

The ministry has also decided to commission a study on social transformation to understand the impact of the housing programme.
Besides this, the National Institute of Public Finance & Policy will also study the governance reforms under PMAY(G) and the impact of higher demand of steel and cement on growth.