Centre plans one crore houses before 2020

New Delhi, Dec 29: The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry initiated several schemes in 2018 and plans to sanction construction of one crore houses before 2020 under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (urban).

        The ministry is mandated to implement a number of flagship programmes – Swachh Bharat Mission, PMAY (U), Smart City Mission, National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) among others.

        Since April 2018, 1,612 cities have been declared as open defecation free (ODF) taking the total number to 4124 across the country under Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban).

        Construction of almost 62 lakh individual household toilets and 5 lakh community and public toilet seats is already over or nearing completion.

        Further, urban areas of 21 states and union territories  have been declared ODF, including Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Chandigarh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh.

        The urban and housing ministry also launched ‘Swachh Survekshan’, a move aimed at fostering healthy competition among cities for improving cleanliness standards.

        Around 68.5 lakh houses have been approved so far for construction under the PMAY (U).

        Out of these, 35.67 lakh houses are under various stages of construction of which 12.45 lakh houses have already been completed.

According to officials, the government is on course to sanction one crore houses well before 2020 to ensure that construction activities are completed to provide housing for all by 2022,” the official said.

        According to government estimates, the total investment involved is Rs 3,56,397 crore. An amount of Rs 33,455 crore has already been released to states and union territories out of the approved total central assistance of Rs 1,00,275 crore.

        Under Smart City Mission, 100 cities have been selected in four rounds based on an all India competition.

        The ministry said that since the launch of the mission, a total of 5,151 projects have been identified for implementation by the cities worth more than Rs 2 lakh crore which are in various stages of implementation in the 100 cities.