KOLKATA: More than 11 lakh beneficiaries of the rural housing scheme, Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), will have to give a written undertaking that they will refund the first instalment of the funds in case they are found ineligible in a final round of verification process after the disbursal of the grant.
“We recently completed a three-step verification process and finalised the names of 11.39 lakh beneficiaries under the PMAY. The beneficiaries will have to complete constructions of their houses within March 31. The verification process will continue at the gram panchayat level, as complaints on eligibility are still pouring in.
The decision to continue the verification process was taken to ensure no ineligible person gets the benefit. As part of this, beneficiaries will have to submit an undertaking that they are bound to refund the first instalment if they don’t meet the criteria,’’ said a senior official of the state panchayat department.
The panchayat department is all set to release the first instalment of `60,000 to each of the beneficiaries within a few days.
The Centre is keeping a close watch on the implementation of PMAY in Bengal as the central teams who had visited the state twice since 2021 found irregularities. Presently, central teams are visiting two south Bengal districts to oversee whether there are irregularities in finalising the beneficiaries under the rural housing scheme.
After pausing the fund under the PMAY last year, the Centre recently approved a grant of Rs 13,000 crore for building up homes for the poor. Sources in the panchayat department said the decision of taking written undertaking from beneficiaries is significant in the backdrop of central teams visiting Bengal to take note of the ground realities in the implementation of the PMAY.
“The Centre has made it clear that it can again freeze the release of funds under the PMAY if ineligible persons are getting the benefits. The state government is treating the issue seriously as Delhi had stopped the release of funds under the PMAY for eight months last year on the ground that the name of the central scheme was changed in Bengal as Bangal Awas Yojana, instead of PMAY. The state government wants error-free lists of beneficiaries,’’ said another official at Nabanna, the state secretariat.
If everything goes well under the PMAY, Bengal is supposed to get 50 lakh houses under the scheme by 2025. Every day, complaints surface from districts accusing the TMC satraps and their relatives of applying for the PMAY grant despite living in palatial houses.