Housing for all: Centre delivers on pace, but quality is the caveat
Mint analysis of the last seven years of data for PMAY-G (2017-18 to 2023-24), spanning both terms of the government, indicates the scheme was starkly back-loaded. Of the sanctioned 25.3 million houses in this period, 22 million have been built. Striking, nearly 68% of them were built in just three years —2019-20 to 2021-22 – and the pace has been slow in the past two fiscal years.
The scheme provides financial assistance of ₹1.2 lakh for building a house in plains and ₹1.3 lakh in hilly areas, with the onus of construction lying with the beneficiary. Beneficiaries can also avail of up to 95 person-days of unskilled labour wages under the rural jobs guarantee scheme during the construction period, and a loan up to ₹70,000 from financial institutions to aid the construction. It had aimed to build 29.5 million pucca houses by March 2022, with the targets set annually; the deadline was later extended to March 2024.
As a centrally sponsored scheme, the union government and states share the cost in a 60:40 ratio (90:10 in northeast and Himalayan states). Over ₹2.5 trillion was released by the Centre during the period of analysis, making up 23.7% of the total expenditure of the ministry of rural development. The lopsided pace is also visible in the faster completion of key stages of construction in the second half of the Modi government's tenure.
The scheme’s guidelines state that the construction of houses should be completed within 12 months from the date of sanction. While on an average it took about a year (356 days) between 2016-17 and 2018-19 to clear the three hoops (administrative, financial and actual construction), it took around 193 days to do so in the past three fiscal years, showed government data. The average
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