The proposal of reshaping the old Indira Awas Yojna has been approved by NITI Aayog the think-tank of Government. Under this proposal, 2.95 crore people may get houses over the next seven years and the estimated worth of restructuring the scheme is Rs. 2.5 lakh crore which is entirely drawn from the union budget. The officials said that this step streamlines the way for achieving the goal of providing housing for all by 2022. In adding, “The project appraisal and management division under NITI Aayog has approved this nod of proposal and the yojna is likely to be followed by renaming the scheme to The National Mission for Rural Housing”.
According to the earlier report of a newspaper, the rural development ministry was reworking the scheme to align it with the Modi-led NDA government’s vision. The scheme, which has also been approved by the expenditure finance committee, will now go to the Cabinet for consideration. The senior government official said that the scheme is likely to be approved in two months at most, after which the ministry will declare the list of eligible beneficiaries under the scheme based on the Socio Economic and Caste Census. “Who did not wish to be identified, the scheme will be funded entirely through the Union budget and the ministry is in the process of making systematic changes to ensure that the money reaches the beneficiaries on time” he also added.
The centrally sponsored Indira Awaas Yojana was funded by the Centre and states in 75:25 proportion in the plains while the cost was shared in 90:10 proportion in hilly or difficult terrains.
The Cabinet has launched the scheme on 25 June and once the rural scheme is approved, the program will be implemented the scheme to achieve the target. The Indira Awas Yojna was launched in 1985 with aim to provide houses to 3.25 crore rural families at a cumulative expenditure of about R. 1 lakh crore. The proposed changes include increasing the size of the houses from 20 sq mt to 25 sq mt, making toilets a mandatory part of the house, increasing the cost per unit from Rs 75,000 to Rs 1.2 lakh per unit and doing away with the standard block design of houses under the previous scheme.
The official quoted “Under the new scheme the ministry has proposed to encourage local design for houses suiting the geographical conditions and made out of locally available material in place of standard block houses under IAY”.
The government plans to set up an autonomous registered society to implement and monitor the scheme, and tap into institutional or sovereign overseas funding to implement the project in mission mode.