Modi govt gave clear “instructions” to give as many houses to women as possible; men got the lion’s share of 38.8% under PMY-G this fiscal.
New Delhi: Only 27.3 per cent of the houses were sanctioned to women under the government’s flagship housing scheme in the financial year 2017-18, despite the Modi government’s clear “instructions” to give more units to women.
While men got the lion’s share of 38.8 per cent of the houses, 33.9 per cent were sanctioned under joint names, according to data on the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) available with the rural development ministry, which oversees the scheme.
A senior ministry official, who did not wish to be identified, told ThePrint that the “instruction from the ministry is to sanction as many houses in the name of women, or in joint name, as possible”.
A total of 23 per cent of the sanctioned houses have been completed so far this year. The completion rate for women, men and in joint name categories is 19 per cent, 28 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively.
“The head of the household may be male or female, but our instruction from here is to sanction as many houses in women’s names or joint names,” the official said.
“If 38.8 per cent houses are under men’s names, which means 62 per cent are in women’s names since joint also includes them,” the official added.
PMAY-G, the re-structured version of Indira Awaas Yojana, calls for ensuring “housing for all by 2022”. “It aims at providing a pucca house, with basic amenities, to all houseless householder and those households living in kutcha and dilapidated house, by 2022,” the ministry says. “The immediate objective is to cover 1 crore household living in kutcha house/dilapidated house in three years from 2016-17 to 2018- 19.”
The Socio Economic Caste Census, 2011, is the basis for identifying beneficiaries under the scheme, using its housing deprivation parameters. As per SECC, around 13 per cent of rural households are female-headed and 12 per cent of women headed households actually own the houses.
Among the states, 92.4 per cent of houses sanctioned under the scheme in Karnataka are in women’s names, followed by Haryana with 55.3 per cent and Rajasthan with 53 per cent. Gujarat has only 8.1 per cent of its houses sanctioned in women’s names, while 51 per cent are in the name of a male member of the household and 41 per cent in joint names.
In terms of community-wise break-up of houses sanctioned in FY 2017-18, 27.4 per cent have been to families belonging to the Scheduled Caste category, 26.1 per cent for Scheduled Tribes and 11 per cent for households in the minority communities.
The completion rate among sanctioned houses for each category so far this year is 21 per cent for SC and ST households and 20 per cent for minorities.
Note: Data for Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka & Telangana is synchronised through web services and hence, not 100 per cent of the data from these states is reflected here.