The first Cabinet meeting of the Modi 3.0 government on Monday approved assistance to construct 3 crore additional rural and urban houses under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).
It has been decided in the Cabinet meeting to provide assistance to 3 crore additional rural and urban households for the construction of houses, to meet the housing requirements arising out of the increase in the number of eligible families, a source said.
The details of the financial assistance under the schemes could not be ascertained immediately.
The Centre is implementing Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana since 2015-16 to provide assistance to the eligible rural and urban households for construction of houses with basic amenities. Under PMAY, total 4.21 crore houses have been completed for the eligible poor families under the housing schemes in the last 10 years.
All the houses constructed under PMAY are provided the other basic amenities such as household toilets, LPG connection, electricity connection and functional household tap connection through convergence with other schemes of Central Government and State Governments.
FE had reported earlier that under the revamped (PMAY-Gramin), the cash support will likely be enhanced to around Rs 2.3-2.4 lakh/housing unit from Rs 1.2-1.3 lakh in the previous scheme, due to cost escalation. The government will likely build another two crore affordable houses in the next five years.
The Centre will also launch a revamped urban affordable housing keeping in mind the escalation in costs. Accordingly, it may unveil a new Rs 60,000 crore interest subsidy scheme for the urban poor and middle class for five years. It may offer interest subvention of 3-6% per annum on home loan amounts up to Rs 5 million. The extant scheme offered interest subvention for home loans up to Rs 18 lakh.
The carpet area will likely be much higher than under the new scheme compared with the earlier Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) for the urban poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U). The carpet area
Under the CLSS scheme of PMAY-U, the Centre was giving an interest subsidy of 6.5% for home loans up to Rs 6,00,000 for the economically weaker sections (carpet area 30-60 sqm), 4% and 3% on loan amount of Rs 6,00,000-12,00,000 and Rs 12,00,000-18,00,000 to beneficiaries belonging to MIG-I (160 sqm) and MIG-II (200 sqm) categories respectively for acquisition/constructions of houses (including re-purchase).