Situation very bad in Valley: Azad

JAMMU: Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Tuesday reached here on the second-leg of his six-day tour of Jammu and Kashmir and said the situation in the Valley was “very bad”.

Azad had reached Srinagar on Friday on his maiden visit to the state after the revocation of special status of J&K on August 5.

“It is very bad... I spent four days in Kashmir... After the end of the sixday tour, I will say whatever I have to say,” Azad told reporters at this residence. NEW DELHI: The Centre’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin) depends heavily on key non-bharatiya Janata Party (Bjp)-ruled states to meet its targets for this year — these states account for around 60% of houses that have to be built in 2019-2020 under the housing scheme for rural poor, government officials said citing government data.

The scheme was expanded in February and the Centre has set itself the target of building 15.5 million houses under the scheme over the next three years so that every poor person in rural areas has a house when the country celebrates 75 years of Independence in 2022.

The Centre has to count on Congress-ruled Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh as well as West Bengal (ruled by the Trinamool Congress), Tamil Nadu (ruled by the AIADMK) and Odisha (ruled by the BJD) to achieve targets under the scheme. The officials said the six states have been allotted 2.93 million out of 5.054 million houses the government wants to build the current financial year.