Bihar to get fewer rural houses

New Delhi: The Centre has reduced the rural housing target for Bihar in the first phase by five lakh in view of dismal progress by the state government in construction of houses for the poor in the last two years.

Union minister of state for rural development Ram Kripal Yadav on Monday told Parliament that the central government had set a target in April 2016 for construction of 16 lakh houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Grameen (PMAY-G) in Bihar by March 2019. For the whole country, the target was one crore households.

Recently, Bihar’s target was revised downward to 11 lakh while the target for a few other states has been increased, maintaining the overall target intact.

Yadav said the five lakh households who are off the list for Bihar would now be covered during the second phase by 2022.

“The progress in construction of houses in Bihar is very poor. But the target for 2019 has been brought down to 11 lakh from 16 lakh,” Yadav said in a reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.

The minister, an MP from Bihar, later told this newspaper that the problem was acute in the state because sand was not available.

However, the situation has improved now.

In 2016, the ministry of rural development renamed the Indira Awas Yojana with provision of additional funds for rural housing.

The ministry used the socio economic caste census (SECC) data released in 2015 to ascertain the number of beneficiaries to be covered under PMAY-G.

The SECC data suggested 4.04 crore households did not have houses in rural areas. The ministry asked the state governments to approve the village-wise beneficiary list from the respective gram sabhas.

The gram sabhas rejected over one crore prospective beneficiaries as they may have benefited under state government schemes.

The PMAY-G fixed a target to construct 2.62 crore households by 2022.

Of them, one crore is to be set up by 2019. As on July 19, 2018, a total of 42.56 lakh houses have been constructed.

Courtesy: The Telegraph