Centre approves construction of 3.61 lakh houses under PMAY-U

The Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has approved the construction of 3.61 lakh houses in 17 states and union territories under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban).

The approval was given by the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC) chaired by Union Housing and Urban Affairs Secretary Durga Shanker Mishra on Tuesday.

With this, the total number of houses sanctioned under the PMAY-U scheme rises to 1.14 crore. Out of these, over 89 lakh have been grounded for construction and 52.5 lakh have been completed and delivered to the beneficiaries, said a statement from the Ministry.

In the meeting, the Secretary asked the states to remove all bottlenecks to ensure early completion of the sanctioned houses.

The scheme, which launched with the goal to provide Housing for All by 2022, is facing number of hurdles as several states struggle to complete the projects due to delay in acquisition of land and rising costs of construction.

In the Monitoring Committee meeting, an e-Finance module was also launched by the Secretary. The e-Finance module has been integrated with all modules of the PMAY-U MIS system and designed, developed within the system with the objectives to provide unique platform to all stakeholders for disbursement of funds through direct benefit transfer mode and to validate beneficiaries.