Centre confident of building 4.4 mn new houses in rural areas by Dec 2017

In total 1.33 crore houses to be built by March 2019, including uncompleted houses from old scheme

The ministry of rural development today claimed that it has constructed almost 2.2 million houses in rural areas under the Indira Awas Yojana till January 28, the highest in last five years and is confident of building almost 4.4 million absolutely new homes under the revamped Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana by December 2017.

In total, the ministry said that altogether one crore 33 lakh houses will be completed in three years from 2016-17 to 2018-19 which also includes 3.3 million uncompleted houses under the old Indira Awas Yojana (IAY).

Under the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) beneficiaries used to get one-time grant of Rs 70,000 per unit in plains and Rs 75,000 per unit in hills from the Central government.

However, under the PMAY, this was raised to Rs 1,25,000 for plains and Rs 1,30,000 per unit for hilly regions.

The Centre launched the ambitious Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in November 2016 with the target of building 1 crore new houses in rural areas by 2018-19.

This target was increased by 30 per cent on December 31 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a move to help the rural poor hit by demonetisation.

That apart, the Centre also decided to complete all the pending houses under the IAY numbering around 3.3 million of which nearly 2.2 million have been completed so far in the financial year and the department if confident that the remaining 1.1 million would also get completed by March end.

The 30 per cent extra houses to be constructed will not be part of the old IAY.

The ministry said that states have started the registration process for construction and over 1.42 million beneficiaries have already been registered so far for construction of houses under the new Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).

"The work on all these houses are expected to be started over the next one month, and completion period for these houses has been brought down to only 12 months with efforts to complete more than 50 per cent of houses in six months," the official statement said.