Abdul Wahab Khan | NT
PANAJI: The state will soon launch a demand survey for ‘Housing for All by 2022,’ a flagship scheme of the Ministry for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation.
The state government has already granted administrative approval to appoint Hyderabad-based Regional Centre of Urban and Environmental Studies (RCUES) for conducting the survey and preparing the Housing for All Plan of Action (HFAPoA) and Annual Implementation Plan (AIP), at the cost of Rs 84 lakh, covering all 14 urban local bodies.
“The demand survey will be carried out to know the exact number of houseless families in the urban areas and the number of affordable houses needed to be built in the available land resources. Based on the survey report, the GSUDA, in association with urban local bodies, would prepare an action plan on implementation of the scheme,” an official said.
The GSUDA has moved a proposal to the state government seeking expenditure sanction for the work.
As per the report of Technical Group on Urban Housing Shortage, prepared by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, the total demand for urban housing has been estimated at 60,000 in the state.
The Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, in his recent budget speech, has announced to rehabilitate all those living in slums of Zuarinagar, Kamrabhat and Chimbel by 2022.
Under the ‘Housing for All by 2022’ scheme named as ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the central government would be granting subsidy to people under the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) category, defined as a family with an income upto Rs 3 lakh and Low Income Group (LIG) with an income from Rs 3-6 lakh.
The beneficiary should not have any pucca house anywhere in India.
According to the scheme, urban poor living in states include street vendors, tea or vegetable vendors, rickshaw operators, migrant labourers, delivery boys, domestic help, Class IV employees, industrial workers, IT junior professionals, and all other eligible categories.
The state has issued a notification in November 2015 classifying urban poor in two categories based on economical and non-economical parameters. As per the set economical parameters, a family with an annual income below Rs 1 lakh will qualify as urban poor. Non-economical parameters include residential vulnerability, occupational vulnerability and social vulnerability, wherein a family has faced deprivation on basis of gender, age, social stratification, no job security, and lack of shelter.
Under the urban housing mission, the central government will provide an assistance in the range of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2.30 lakh per house under different components of the scheme including in-situ redevelopment of slums using land as resource with private participation for providing houses to eligible slum dwellers, Credit-linked Subsidy Scheme, Affordable Housing in Partnership with rates fixed by the government and beneficiary-led individual construction or improvement.