On the occasion of “Awaas Diwas” celebration,Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister of Rural Development, Panchayati Raj, Agriculture & Farmers Welfare and Food Processing, Govt of India interacted with Rural Development Ministers and officials of the States/ Union Territories through the Video Conference. During the interaction, the Minister congratulated the States/ UTs for their contribution towards the noble goal of “Housing for All” by providing houses to rural households. Shri Tomar further mentioned that PMAY-G is not only credited with the task of providing houses to beneficiaries, but it also serves in protecting the dignity of the households. This enhancement of quality of life has an additional positive impact on the welfare of the beneficiaries. Awaas Diwas / Awaas Week is not just a day to celebrate a scheme, but a day to connect with crores of rural households, who have been greatly benefited by this scheme or in the Permanent Wait List (PWL) to receive the benefit of the scheme. Moreover, it is also an opportunity to spread awareness about the scheme among all stakeholders. Several State RD Ministers expressed their views on bottlenecks and their commitment to achieve the target of ‘Housing for all by 2022’.
Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Minister of State, Ministry of Rural Development, Shri Nagendra Nath Sinha, Secretary, Department of Rural Development; Ms. Alka Upadhyay, Additional Secretary (Rural Development); Shri Gaya Prasad, Deputy Director General(RH) and other officials from the Ministry of Rural Development were also present.On this occasion the Ministers of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj from 16 States were present along with Secretaries/ program officers of all States.
The Rural Housing Scheme, Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin (PMAY-G) was launched by the Prime Minister of India on 20thNovember 2016 at Agra, Uttar Pradesh. To commemorate the launch of PMAY-G, which aims to provide “Housing for All” by 2022, it was decided to celebrate 20thNovember every year as “Awaas Diwas”.
The program envisages the completion of 2.95 crore PMAY-G houses with all basic amenities by the year 2022. In the 1stphase of the scheme i.e. from 2016-17 to 2018-19, a target for construction of 1 crore pucca houses were set. In the 2nd phase of the scheme starting from 2019-20 to 2021-22, the target of construction of the remaining 1.95 crore houses has been set. As on date, a total of 1.75 Crore PMAY-G houses has been sanctioned and 1.20 Crore houses have been completed against the allocated cumulative target of 2.26 Crore houses.
Under PMAY-G with the introduction of certain implementation reforms, the Government aims at maintaining transparency and enhancing the speed of house construction, maintaining quality, ensuring timely release of funds to beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT), technical assistance to beneficiaries, offering bouquet of region specific house designs to the beneficiaries, stringent monitoring through MIS-Awaas Soft and Awaas App.
The Awaas Diwas/ Awaas week was celebrated with great zeal and enthusiasm in the country during previous years 2017, 2018, and 2019 also wherein the States/ UTs undertook various activities with the active participation of the beneficiaries of PMAY-G.
This year, the States/ UTs have been requested to celebrate Awaas Diwas on 20th November 2020 and Awaas Week / Saptah (16th November 2020 to 22nd November 2020) and undertake various activities at different levels of the administration i.e. State, District, Block, Gram Panchayat complying to the directions issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Health and Family welfare considering the prevalent conditions owing to COVID19. Activities to be taken up during the celebration of Awaas Diwas/ Awaas Week include
- Sensitization of beneficiaries about PMAY-G
- Organizing visits of the beneficiaries to the sites with demonstration houses.
- Organizing interaction of PMAY-G beneficiaries with local bankers to facilitate a loan to beneficiaries of PMAY-G.
- Organizing Bhoomi Pujan, Grih Pravesh, etc.
- Any other activities as it deems appropriate during the Awaas Diwas/ Awaas week celebrations.
The Minister thanked all organisations/ individuals of the PMAY-G fraternity, right from the field functionaries to the officials of Block, District, State and Central level, for the dedicated efforts for implementing the scheme in a transparent manner and making it successful. The efforts to revive the pace of construction of houses after the lockdown by following the necessary guidelines of COVID 19 were also appreciated.
