If the state government does not provide homestead land by December 15, 2022, approximately 19,000 landless families in the state will lose housing assistance under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G). The Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) made it clear in a recent circular to states that the target funding for beneficiaries who are landless will be withdrawn and transferred to states that are performing better.
“All the States/UTs are requested to provide land to landless PMAY-G beneficiaries on priority and sanction houses to landless beneficiaries by December 15, 2022. If the States/UTs fail to do so, the allocated target linked to the landless PMAY-G beneficiaries would be withdrawn from the State/UT and the same will be re-allocated to other better performing States/UTs,” said MoRD deputy director general Gaya Prasad.
According to a report supplied to MoRD by the state government, 39,089 out of 57,932 landless people have received housing support in the form of land or financial aid for the acquisition of land. For a long time, the remaining 18,843 named beneficiaries have been waiting for some land. Land allotted to beneficiaries is frequently the subject of litigation.
The PMAY-G construction deadline has been pushed back from March 2022 to March 2024, and the Center is not inclined to grant another extension in light of the upcoming general elections. In a previous communication from September, the MoRD had stated that states would be subject to a fine in the form of a deduction from their Central Share starting on October 1, 2022, for any delays in the approval and construction of homes under the PMAY’s flagship program. The Center approved 8,17,513 homes for the state in 2021–2022; however, the majority of the beneficiaries have not yet received allotment orders from the government.
A review conducted last year revealed that 36,198 families lived in homes built on government land, including 8,575 families belonging to primitive and vulnerable tribal groups, while 57,257 homestead landless families were on a permanent waiting list for the allocation of housing plots.
The government instructed the Revenue department to address the issue by revising the rules for the allocation of housing plots after consulting with the departments of the forest and panchayati raj, but no discernible progress has been made.
“Providing land to the landless PMAY-G beneficiaries is the responsibility of the state governments. However, land is yet to be provided to 2,79,623 landless PMAY-G beneficiaries majorly from the states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Odisha and Bihar which contribute to around 92 per cent of the total remaining landless PMAY-G beneficiaries,” the MoRD letter said.
Prasanta Patnaik