The Centre on Tuesday asserted that there is no discrimination in sanctioning housing projects for the benefit of urban poor under the Prime Minister’s Awas Yojana (Urban). Replying to the discussion in the Lok Sabha on the Demands for Grants for 2016-17, Minister of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation M Venkaiah Naidu, ruled out any discrimination against any states.
It was alleged that states were empowered to apprise and approve such projects and yet the Centre conducted a broad scrutiny. Naidu informed the House of state-wise proposals received under PMAY (Urban) which were approved by his Ministry. Naidu said, “If some states do proper home work, prepare and approve projects at the level of Chief Secretary, my Ministry can’t put them on hold as there is a huge target for construction of houses for urban poor. Andhra Pradesh and Telangana fell in this category”.
Referring to an observation made by a member of Karnataka, Naidu informed that the state government sent proposals for 16,522 houses only and they were approved in toto.
Agreeing to the suggestions of members of the House for more allocation of funds for the Housing Mission, the Minister said that depending on the proposals received from states, Finance Ministry would be approached for more funds from time to time.