The state government plans to complete pending construction work on more than 70,000 houses under the central government’s Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) scheme by the end of January.
Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma today declared Meghalaya as “survey ready” under PMAY-G. Surveyors have been mapped for each village who will be the key contact in conducting the survey and updating the Awaas+ 2018 list ensuring the registration of all deserving households and villages who were left out and uncovered in the previous survey.
This effort came after the Union Ministry of Rural Development’s Rural Housing Division extended the PMAY-G for a period of another five years until 2028-29. Meghalaya, having saturated all previous targets, will be among the first few where surveys will be initiated.
Since the launch of PMAY-G in 2016, Meghalaya has sanctioned 1, 86,283 houses, achieving saturation of targets under the 2018 Awaas+ survey. So far, 1, 13,158 (60.75 per cent) houses have been completed, a press release said today, with the remaining under various stages of construction. The state aims to complete all pending houses by January 2025.
The State Rural Employment Society (SRES), the nodal implementing agency under the Community and Rural Development Department, has mapped 6,354 surveyors against 6,426 villages to update the Awaas+ database using revised exclusion criteria and using the eKYC face based authentication. It is mandatory for all potential beneficiaries to provide the required documents, i.e. Aadhaar card, MGNREGA job card, bank account details, Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) number, voter ID and caste certificate, affidavit declaring no permanent house ownership.
The Housing Mission is one of the five core development goals envisioned by the Government of Meghalaya. Through this Mission, the State seeks to tackle multidimensional poverty and set a benchmark for progress in rural housing and allied services. Anchored by PMAY-G, the Government of Meghalaya is leveraging its Housing Mission to address various aspects of rural deprivation in collaboration with other related schemes, to create access to essential services such as education, healthcare, clean water, sanitation, and other basic amenities, ensuring that every citizen can live a life with dignity, the release added.
Alongwith PMAY-G, a series of other benefits would be extended to the potential PMAY-G beneficiaries as convergence with other government schemes to ensure comprehensive support for beneficiaries.