NEW DELHI: While on the one hand, the Centre has been gloating about the progress of their rural housing schemes, three states have asked the Ministry of Rural Development to revise their targets under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) as they have not been able to find the sufficient number of beneficiaries. Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh wrote to the ministry in September seeking a revision of targets. In the case of Haryana, the government submitted that it has been able to identify only 21,502 beneficiaries while its target was 38,422. “The remaining 16,940 housing units may be treated as surrendered from the state...” the state government said.
In the case of Punjab, the state has sought a reduction of more than 50%. The Centre’s target for the state was 31,084 homes. The state has asked that the number be revised to 12,500. “The state government of Punjab has found that as per the present criteria of the kutcha house, the eligible beneficiaries are not found commensurate to targets allocated to them. Therefore, the state is keeping the targets of 14,000 houses for the year 2017-18. The remaining targets may be treated as surrendered,” the state government’s plea stated.
Himachal Pradesh’s case was no different. However, the revision sought was not much. The Centre’s target for the state was 28,765 homes while state has sought it to be revised to 24,876. “We have identified only around 24,000 beneficiaries and hence we sought the revision. The Centre has been gracious to set targets for us but there are not many beneficiaries,” a rural development official of the Himachal Pradesh government said.
Experts feel that setting inflated targets just to showcase numbers has been a norm by successive governments. “We have been noticing this ploy by successive governments to attract voters by throwing numbers at them.... I am glad three states have taken the initiative to flag the government on unrealistic targets,” Professor HS Solanki of the National Institute of Rural Development (NIRD), Hyderabad said.