Housing is universally recognized as a basic human need. Reducing rural housing shortage and improving the quality of housing especially for the poor is an important component of the poverty alleviation strategy of the government. The rural housing scheme Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) implemented by Ministry
of Rural Development, aimed at providing houses to families below the poverty line (BPL) in rural areas has since inception provided assistance for construction of 360 lakh houses.
In the context of government’s priority for “Housing for All” by 2022, the rural housing scheme IAY has been restructured to Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana—Gramin (PMAY-G), which came into effect from the financial year 2016-17. The main features of the scheme include: (a) providing assistance for construction of 1.00 crore houses in rural areas over the period of 3 years from 2016-17 to 2018-19; (b) enhancement of unit assistance from ₹70,000 to ₹1.20 lakh in plains and from ₹75,000 to ₹1.30 lakh in hilly states, difficult areas and IAP districts; (c) identification of beneficiaries based on the socio-economic and
caste census (SECC 2011) data covering households that are houseless or living in houses with kutcha walls and kutcha roof with two rooms or less after excluding households falling under the automatic exclusion category; (d) setting up of national technical support agency at the national level to provide technical support to the implementing agencies and to the beneficiaries in taking up construction of houses and help in achieving the target set under the project.
