New Delhi: In the revamped Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban — PMAY-U 2.0 — the Modi government has done away with the slum redevelopment component, which had been mandatory under the scheme to provide housing to slum dwellers in cities.
Under PMAY-U 2.0, slum dwellers or families belonging to economically weaker sections (EWS) can now construct houses on vacant land parcels, either owned by them or provided by the states and Union Territories.
The provision is among the three options given in the revamped scheme — approved by the Union Cabinet om 9 August — to provide affordable housing to the urban poor living in slum clusters in cities.
While states such as Odisha had been giving land rights to slum dwellers for houses, PMAY-U 2.0 has now made a provision under which slum dwellers can construct houses if they have land titles.
In many states, such as Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab, among others, the state governments give either land ownership to slum dwellers or provide them with vacant land free of cost to rehabilitate slums.
The mandatory in-situ slum redevelopment component (ISSR) under the current scheme has been subsumed under the Beneficiary-Led Construction (BLC) and Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) components in PMAY-U 2.0.
Under the ISSR component, state governments can take up slum redevelopment projects at the same location where the slum is located to provide housing to its residents.
The decision to remove this vertical was due to what officials with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) have called “a muted response from the states”.
While reviewing the PMAY-U implementation with states earlier, the Centre found that many slum dwellers have been getting their houses sanctioned under the AHP and BLC verticals, prompting the changes.
“Several states such as Odisha, Punjab, and Madhya Pradesh, among others, provide land rights to urban poor in existing slums or allot new land parcels in cities. We have now made slum redevelopment more flexible by giving multiple options to states,” said a senior MoHUA official.
Under the PMAY-U, which was launched in 2015, a total of 118 lakh houses have been sanctioned for EWS, and lower and middle income groups. Of the 118 lakh houses, states and UTs had sent proposals for construction of just 2.95 lakh houses under the ISSR component.
“There was no demand for in-situ slum redevelopment due to various factors, including financial viability of the project and delay in getting the land vacated for development, among others. We found that in many states such as Odisha, slum dwellers constructed houses under the BLC vertical after the state governments gave them land rights,” said another senior official in the know-how of things.
“The decision to do away with the mandatory in-situ slum redevelopment vertical was taken to give more options to states to rehabilitate slum dwellers. States can still come up with in-situ projects but under the other verticals of the scheme.”
Urban poverty and land rights activists have welcomed the move to do away with the least-popular vertical — ISSR.
Under PMAY-U 2.0, the Centre’s target is the construction of three crore new houses — two crore in rural areas and one crore in cities — over the next five years. In urban areas, EWS families will get financial assistance of up to Rs 2.5 lakh to construct houses.
Land rights for the landless
The Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN), a Delhi-based NGO working for the welfare of slum dwellers, has been pushing for provisions to recognise the land rights of slum dwellers.
In its report released in August 2020 — ‘Forced Evictions in India in 2019’ — HLRN recommended that the Centre come up with laws on the lines of the Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act, 2017, and the Punjab Slum Dwellers (Proprietary Rights) Act, 2020.
Under the Odisha Land Rights to Slum Dwellers Act, 2017, slum dwellers get land rights in slum clusters.
“Slum dwellers in slums across the state became entitled to heritable and mortgageable land rights for up to 30 sq m for residential use,” according to a state government website. “Further, depending on the extent of land in current occupation by a slum household, there will be a ceiling of 45 sq m in municipalities and 60 sq m in Notified Area Councils (NACs) on payment of a certain percentage of the benchmark value.”
In Odisha, many slum dwellers have constructed their houses after getting land rights from the state government under the PMAY-U BLC component.
A senior ministry official said that during review meetings with states, especially Odisha, the Centre found that slum clusters usually availed of the BLC component of the scheme. “So, there was a need to give other options for slum rehabilitation. Several states, such as Madhya Pradesh, have provisions for allotting land parcels to EWS families,” he said.
Welcoming the decision, Aravind Unni, a housing and urban poverty expert, said, “The in-situ rehabilitation on public private partnership basis has clearly not worked in a majority of cities in India. The push towards the beneficiary linked component will play a major role in rehabilitating slums. I just hope that the government makes it mandatory for states/cities to give land to slum dwellers for construction of houses.”
According to activists, the Odisha Act has helped lakhs of people. “While the implementation of the law in Punjab is in the nascent stages, it is a big success in Odisha. It has ended evictions, leading to planned infrastructure development in slum areas and better implementation of PMAY in Odisha,” said Unni.
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PMAY-U extension?
The pace of PMAY-U implementation, especially under the ISSR component, is patchy. The scheme will come to an end in December this year. However, ministry sources said there may be an extension till next year.
Of the 2.95 lakh houses sanctioned under the ISSR component, just 55.1 percent (roughly 1.63 lakh) stood completed till July, according to the data provided by the MoHUA in response to a question by Rajya Sabha MP Ajay Maken from the Congress.
States such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Odisha are among the few states with many incomplete houses.
With 1.44 lakh houses, Maharashtra has the highest number of houses sanctioned under the ISSR component. However, various cities in the state could start the construction of only 85,660 flats. Of them, just 52,538 stood completed till July, according to the ministry’s response to a question by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP K. Eswarasamy in the Lok Sabha in the last session.
The progress in the AHP component, under which states or private players get financial incentives to construct housing for EWS families, is also below average. Under the current scheme, the central assistance is Rs 1.5 lakh per EWS house, but the project should have at least 250 houses, with 35 percent reserved for the EWS category.
According to the ministry’s response to Maken’s question, the Centre sanctioned 15,71,586 houses under the AHP component since 2015 but only 8,74,407 (55.6 percent) stood completed till 22 July.
“We have asked states to expedite the work, but the ongoing scheme might get extended till next year… But a decision in this regard is yet to be taken,” said an official.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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