NEW DELHI: Only 26% of funds sanctioned under three different verticals of the government’s flagship PM Awas Yojana (Urban) has been utilised in last six years of its implementation and as a result, only 30% of the sanctioned houses could be constructed during the period.
Only 25% of the sanctioned funds have been spent under In-Situ Slum Redevelopment (ISSR), while the percentage for Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) segment is 26%. Beneficiary Led Construction (BLC) vertical also showed similar pattern with only 27% of sanctioned budget spent.
Poor fund utilisation reflected in delivery of houses. According to the data from Ministry of Housing (till mid-March 2021), only 5,16,764 houses have been delivered under AHP segment against the sanctioned number of 23,31,229. Similarly, 19.53 lakh houses have been constructed under BLC as against the sanctioned 68.69 lakh houses.
By Soumyadip Chattopadhyay, Arjun Kumar
Twenty-first Century India is urbanizing at a massive scale. The country is expected to house half of its population in urban areas by the year 2040. Cities, especially the larger ones, have been placed at the centre of the economic growth strategies. However, the increasing pace of urbanisation in India has not been matched by adequate planning, governance and infrastructure development. The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have further exposed the shortcomings of Indian cities in addressing urban densification and inadequate provision of urban basic services including drinking water and sanitation.
This pandemic has affected the urban poor more than anyone else. The engines of our economic growth have been derailed due to massive disruption in economic and related activities inflicted by this pandemic. Given the predominance of informal production and labour relations in the Indian cities, a cessation of all economic activity is bound to h