PMAY (U) gets ₹4,988-cr funding booster

In a major push to house building, the government has approved the construction of 1.23 lakh houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) thereby taking the total number of houses sanctioned under the scheme to over 90 lakhs. The approval for funds worth ₹4,988 crore was given by the Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee (CSMC) spearheaded by Union Housing and Urban Affairs secretary Durga Shanker Mishra. The committee approved 630 proposals from participating states for construction of 1.23 lakh housing units. West Bengal gave approval for 27,746 houses; Tamil Nadu for 26,709 houses, Gujarat (20,903), Punjab (10,332), Chhattisgarh (10,079), Jharkhand (8,674), Madhya Pradesh (8,314), Karnataka (5,021), Rajasthan (2,822) and Uttarkhand (2,501). With this approval, over 90 lakh houses have been sanctioned so far against the target of 1.12 crore by 2022 under PMAY (Urban). So far, an overall investment of Rs 5.54 lakh crore has been approved which includes Rs 3.01 lakh crore from the central and state governments and funds worth Rs 2.53 lakh crore as private investment. Union Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri claimed that the target of 'Housing for All' would be achieved in 2020, two years before the deadline.