State surpasses national average

LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh, under the Yogi Adityanath government, has surpassed the national average in achieving the target of installment disbursement to beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana (PMAY-G).

“Against national average of 60%, Uttar Pradesh has achieved 90% of the target when it comes to disbursing first instalment and 80% in case of second instalment against national average of 41%,” said Partha Sarthi Sen Sharma, commissioner, rural development.

In fact, the state is set to complete allotment of 8 lakh houses by March this year.

The flagship scheme of the Modi government aims to provide housing to all rural poor by 2022.

Under the scheme, every beneficiary is entitled to Rs 1,20,000 in three instalment.

While the first instalment is of Rs 40,000, second is of Rs 70,000, the third is of Rs 10,000.

Apart from it, each beneficiary is also entitled to Rs 15,000 for 90 days of employment under the MNREGA for working at his own under construction house and Rs 12,000 for construction of toilet.

“We have already disbursed first instalment of Rs 40,000 to 8.80 lakh beneficiaries, second instalment of Rs 70,000 to 8.23 lakh beneficiaries and third instalment of Rs 10,000 to 2.06 lakh beneficiaries,” said Sharma.

“The achievement is despite the fact that work got delayed due to civic polls,” he added.

Instalment amounts have been directly transferred into bank accounts of beneficiaries.

In order to ensure transparency in the scheme, names of all beneficiaries have been painted on walls at every gram panchayat so that villagers could point any discrepancy in the list, if any, and report the matter to chief development officer on his cell phone. The officer’s cell number has also been painted along with the list.

Beneficiaries have been selected on the basis of the Socio Economic Survey, 2011.

The state government is also organising awareness camps at panchayat to create awareness among rural folks about the housing scheme.

For homeless people in urban areas, a separate Pradhan Mantri (Urban) Awas Yojna has been launched.