PM Awas Yojana: Houses not built after taking installments of PM Awas Yojana, beneficiaries not found for recovery

Incomplete multi-storey houses under PM Awas Yojana in Atarsuma.

Highlights

Beneficiaries did not build houses with the money of PM Awas Yojana. 880 houses are lying incomplete and vacant in NANI’s Atarsuma Colony. Payment of the second installment for 375 houses in the Gram Panchayats is stuck.

Naiduniya representative, Morena. Many beneficiaries of Morena city have committed fraud in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana. The Municipal Corporation has distributed grants to more than 2160 homeless beneficiaries under the PM Awas Yojana. Out of these, 72 beneficiaries are such who did not build a house after taking the money.

After six months of notice proceedings, the Municipal Corporation started a campaign to recover money from them. Out of 72 beneficiaries, only one has returned one lakh rupees to the Municipal Corporation, most of the remaining 71 beneficiaries are not found at the address where they said they would construct the PM house.

Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, the Municipal Corporation had selected more than 160 beneficiaries in the year 2018-19, who were living in kutcha houses. To provide these poor families with permanent houses, the Municipal Corporation gave a grant of Rs 1,000 each as the first installment. Out of these, 88 poor people got their houses built, but there are 72 beneficiaries who have not started the construction of the house.

These beneficiaries were found when they did not demand the second installment amount. When investigation was done, these beneficiaries were not found at those places where money was taken for building PM houses. After this, six months ago, the Municipal Corporation declared these 72 beneficiaries as defaulters and started recovering money from them.

So far only one beneficiary has returned one lakh rupees, the corporation administration is unable to find the remaining 71 beneficiaries. Many beneficiaries have gone to other cities after taking the grant amount. Due to this the progress graph of the PM Awas Yojana is also not moving forward.

375 houses of poor people are incomplete in rural areas

Like the municipal corporation area, in many villages of the district, the construction of PM houses for hundreds of beneficiaries is incomplete. There are 489 gram panchayats in Morena district and the records of the district panchayat monitoring PM houses in these villages show that from 2016-17 to 2021-22, i.e. in four years, 16878 homeless poor families have been sanctioned concrete houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

Out of these, the construction of 16503 houses has been completed, but there are 375 houses which have not been given the money for housing after the first or second installment. After 2021-22, no PM housing was approved for a homeless family in any village of Morena district, while Pahargarh district and Kailaras district panchayat have identified more than 800 homeless poor in the last three years.

880 poor families in Atarsuma are waiting for a house

Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Nagar Nigam is also developing a multi-storey residential colony in Atarsuma. 1410 houses are to be built in it, out of which 1116 are proposed for EWS, 240 for LIG and 60 for MIG group. In this colony, houses are to be given on government subsidy to those poor families who do not have their own house.

So far more than 1200 needy people have bought houses here, but the Municipal Corporation has been able to complete only 530 houses and hand them over to the beneficiaries. The construction of the remaining 880 houses remains incomplete. Now to complete the incomplete work, a plan was made to sell 240 MIG and 60 LIG houses in Atarsuma Residential Colony to the colonizers, so that the colonizers could complete the incomplete work and hand them over to the beneficiaries, but this could not happen.

People in Atarsuma Colony are also worried about basic facilities like roads, electricity and water. 10 days ago, the residents of this colony gheraoed the Collectorate and demanded facilities of electricity, water and roads.

There are 72 such beneficiaries who did not build houses after taking the grant money. Recovery is being done from them. So far money has been taken back from one beneficiary, the process of recovery from others is going on after finding them. The work of incomplete houses in Atarsuma will be completed this year and the keys of the houses will be given to the selected families. – Devendra Singh Chauhan, Commissioner, Municipal Corporation Morena