Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana

Central Government announced this scheme for the construction of houses to the rural poor people.Started in 1985 as part of the Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP), Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) was subsumed in Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY) in 1989 and has been operating as an independent scheme since 1 January 1996.In 1993-94 this scheme was extended to Non SC/ST categories also.From 1995–96 the scheme has been further extended to widows or next-of-kin of defence personnel killed in action, ex-servicemen and retired members of the paramilitary forces who wish to live in rural areas as long as they meet basic eligibility criteria.

Given that India has been historically a populous and poor country, the need of proper housing for the refugees and villagers has been a focus of Government’s welfare schemes since the time of India’s independence.As a result, various welfare schemes like House Sites Construction Assistance Scheme have been ongoing since the 1950s. However, it was only in the 1983 that a focused fund for creation of housing for scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and freed bonded labour was set up under Rural Landless Employment Guarantee Programme (RLEGP). This gave birth to IAY in the fiscal year 1985–86.

“Indira Awaas Yojana” (IAY) was launched by Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India in 1985 and was restructured as “Pradhan Mantri Gramin Awaas Yojana” (PMGAY) in 2015.The broad purpose of the scheme is to provide financial assistance to some of the weakest sections of society for them to upgrade or construct a house of respectable quality for their personal living.The vision of the government is to replace all temporary (kutchcha) houses from Indian villages by 2017.As per the 2011 budget, the total funds allocated for IAY have been set at ₹100 billion (US$1.4 billion)[13] for construction of houses for BPL families with special focus on the Left Wing Extremist (LWE) districts.Under the scheme, eligible people will get a financial assistance from government amounting to ₹1.2lakh (US$1,700) for constructing their houses in rural areas and an amount of ₹12,000 (US$170) for constructing toilets.They can also borrow an amount of ₹70,000 (US$980). After current provision of PMGAY people should apply online.

Application procedure

1. Log on to the PMAY website pmaymis.gov.in.
2. Choose the ‘Citizen Assessment’ option and click on the applicable choice: “For Slum Dwellers” or “Benefits under other 3 components”.
3. Enter Aadhaar card details.
4. This will redirect you to the application page, where you will have to fill in all the details accurately.
5. The details to be filled include name, contact number, other personal details, bank account and income details, among others.
6. Once this is done, choose the ‘Save’ option and enter the Captcha code.
7. Then, click on the ‘Save’ button. The application is now complete and a print out can be taken at this stage.

Beneficiary:

Rural Poor

Benefits:

Financial assistance to some of the weakest sections of society for them to upgrade or construct a house