The Bihar government will take action against officials concerned if the construction of 5.51 lakh pending houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) is not completed by June, State Rural Development Minister Shrawan Kumar said on Thursday.
Many of these houses have been under construction since 2015 and got financial approval in 2012-13.
"The non-completion of construction of 5,51,893 houses -- 2,42,803 under PMAY-G and 3,09,090 under the erstwhile Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) – in rural areas of the state is a matter of grave concern.
"I recently held a meeting with the deputy development commissioners of all the districts and warned them that strict departmental action will be initiated if they fail to meet the deadline," Mr Kumar told PTI.
The minister, however, regretted that no bank – private or nationalised – was willing to provide loans to the beneficiaries to build houses under the government schemes.
"I have raised the issue several times. Recently, I urged banks to provide home loans to eligible beneficiaries under PMAY-G scheme during the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) meeting held in Patna on March 24 this year," he said.
Under the scheme, beneficiaries can avail loans of up to Rs 70,000 from financial institutions, he said.
As per data accessed by PTI, over 26.96 lakh houses under PMAY-G have been sanctioned in Bihar from 2016-2021, of which 24.54 lakh units have been completed or delivered to beneficiaries (around 90 per cent).
Districts where completion work is slow or below 85 per cent of the sanction are Supaul (77 per cent), Saran (78.65 per cent), Madhepura (81.65 per cent), Katihar (82.64 per cent), Munger (83.14 per cent), Begusarai (83.64 per cent) and Lakhisarai (82.24 per cent).
Districts where the construction of houses under IAY has been pending since 2012 are Araria, Darbhanga, East and West Champaran, Purnea, Samastipur, Supaul, Madhubani and Begusarai.
The NDA government had rechristened IAY as PMAY-G and relaunched it in 2016 under 'housing for all by 2022' initiative. A total of 2.62 crore of the 2.95 crore target houses have been allocated across the country from 2016-17 to 2021-22.
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