NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship and ambitious project ‘Housing for All’ is moving at slow pace even one-and-a-half years after it was launched in June 2015. Only 7,000 houses have been constructed in five states so far, while the government aimed to construct two crore houses across the country by 2022. Around 4,000 cities are covered under this scheme.
This is the situation when the government has released Rs 4,275 crore to states for building houses in urban areas. However, construction has not begun in many states, including Haryana, Punjab, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Odisha, Kerala and Jammu and Kashmir.
Moreover, many states and UTs have not even sent even the proposal for construction of houses. A Ministry of Housing official said, “States have been told to send proposals for construction of housing projects. The Centre releases funds only after studying the projects. Now, many states have started construction. But it seems difficult to reach the target of one crore houses by 2019.”
To give the mission a push, Modi in his address to the nation on New Year’s eve, announced major relief for loans to buy the houses. Earlier, the Centre had offered an interest subsidy of 6.5 per cent for a loan amount of up to Rs 6 lakh. Adding relief to the scheme, loans up to Rs 9 lakh taken in 2017 will receive interest subvention of 4 per cent, and home loans up to Rs 12 lakh will receive interest subvention of 3 per cent. Officials said that the relief in loan will push the scheme to reach the target sooner.
Officials claimed that construction of 14 lakh houses has been approved while work has started for 1.53 lakh houses.