PMAY: ‘Housing for all’ a grand success – for middlemen
Besides chai-paani during regular inspections, the poor have to forfeit around 10% of the total allotted amount to get approvals
Housing for all or free for all? Pic - MDDTimes
While the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (PMAY; housing for all) may look impressive with online data and houses on ground, it has snatched huge amount of money meant for the poor and put it in the pockets of the middlemen with no consequences.
The poor and the illiterate often do not know where to apply for the funds under PMAY and have to plead with local influencers/councillors just to get the process started. Thereby, they are in the firm control of middlemen from the beginning.
For such people (the educated have to suffer more) though the sanctions are swift and they get some money to start building their house given they agree to whatever the local influencer asks them to do. However, they have to bribe and placate officials regularly as the funds are released in parts and as they are completely under the mercy of middlemen.
A beneficiary told MDDTimes, “We have already spent Rs.300,000 in building our house, with the roof and finishing work still pending. We should have got Rs.225,000 in total as assistance, but officials say we would get only Rs.200,000 and that too in parts.” Regular chai-paani is extra of course.
The Finance Minister in her budget speech for FY 2022-23 had said 80 lakh houses will be completed during the financial year — rural (52 lakh) and urban (28 lakh); and Rs. 48,000 crore has been allocated for this purpose.
Imagine the scale of corruption involved as the scheme started on 1 April 2016. As on 16 March 2022, cumulative 2.28 crore houses had been sanctioned by the States/Union Territories (UTs), out of which 1.75 crore houses had been completed.
We intend to highlight this and plug the leakage. Have you faced such circumstances while availing the PMAY scheme. In this Readers’ Impact section, we urge you to expose such cases. Write to us at reader@mddtimes.com (or feedback@mddtimes.com) and we will publish it within this article after minimal vetting. Just mention the place and date; names are not required. All inputs will be kept confidential.
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