Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an increase in the budget outlay for the Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana (PMAY), giving about ₹79,000 crore for the flagship initiative, according to budget papers. The increase is predominantly in the rural component of the plan.
The finance minister said on Wednesday that the allocation to the PMAY’s two components, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (urban) and the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (gramin), had been increased by 66 percent.
The government has allotted ₹25,103 crore for the urban component of the plan in the budget tabled on Wednesday, while ₹54,487 crore has been given for the rural component, for a total of ₹79,590 crore.
The urban component of PMAY was given ₹20,000 crore in the previous year, whereas the revised estimate for spending was ₹28,708 crore. The allocation to PMAY-U in the 2023-24 budget is approximately 12% lower than the revised estimate for the previous year.
The updated estimate for the scheme’s rural component was ₹48,422 crore, about two-and-a-half times the previous allocation of ₹20,000 crore.
The budget for the rural component of the plan has also increased by roughly 12% compared to the revised estimate for the previous fiscal year. Overall, the original allocation for PMAY (rural and urban) in the Budget 2022–23 was ₹48,000 crore, bringing the minister’s stated increase to 66 percent.
Nevertheless, updated projections from a mid-year review of expenditure showed an increase in overall expenditures to ₹77,130 crore. In comparison to the updated estimate, the increase in allocations this time is roughly 3%.
On December 19, last year, the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry informed Rajya Sabha that, as of December 12, 2022, 1.20 crore dwellings had been sanctioned by the ministry based on project proposals filed by states and union territories, against a verified demand of 1.12 crore houses.
The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban has been extended through December 31, 2024, for the completion of already sanctioned dwellings.
The PMAY-G programme began in November 2016 with the goal of providing approximately three crore pucca dwellings with adequate facilities to all eligible homeless families living in kutchas and dilapidated rural houses by 2024. According to the Economic Report submitted in Parliament on Tuesday, a total of ₹2.7 crore dwellings have been sanctioned under the programme in rural regions, with 2.1 crore of them finished by January 6, 2023.
