AGARTALA, June 23 (TIWN): After massive scams in almost all the centrally sponsored schemes in Tripura , Manik Sarkar led CPI-M Govt has once again involved in gross irregularities the PM Modi's dream project of 'Housing For All By 2022' under which Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation . Neither state gov't nor any of the municipal authorities have made any attempt of public notification through local newspapers and TV channels to make the people aware of this scheme. Rather , all the municipalities/Nagar panchayats have acted as per the instructions given by the CPI-M party offices to manipulate the transparency of the scheme simply to introduce Party Raj in this dream project. It is to be mentioned here that on 17th June 2015 the Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave its approval for the launch of “Housing for All by 2022”. Manik Sarkar led CPI-M Govt's corruption planners turned PMAY into another goldmine for robbing Central funds.

The mission seeks to address the housing requirement of urban poor including slum dwellers through following programme verticals :-

a) Slum rehabilitation of Slum Dwellers with participation of private developers using land as a resource;

b) Promotion of affordable housing for weaker section through credit linked subsidy;

c) Affordable housing in partnership with Public & Private sectors and d) Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction or enhancement. CPI-M however turned this central scheme into another corruption den by forceful collection of  property tax(?) imposed upon them even though no mention of 'property tax' in Central Govt guidelines.

But in Tripura state gov't is only implementing the fourth vertical of the  scheme" Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction or enhancement." Moreover, as per the PMAY guidelines in Phase I the last date of receiving the application for this scheme is 30th June 2016 but in Tripura after 20th June no one is allowed to apply for it.

A key feature of this scheme is that under the Credit Linked Interest Subsidy component, interest subsidy of@ 6.5% on housing loans upto Rs 6lakh  availed upto a tenure of 15 years will be provided to Economically Weaker Section(EWS) /Lower Income Group(LIG) categories, Interest Subsidy Calculated on NPV basis at a discount rate of 9%.  Central assistance at the rate of Rs.1.5 lakh per house for EWS category will be provided under the Affordable Housing in Partnership and Beneficiary-led individual house construction or enhancement.

Under Credit Link Subsidy Central Assistance under different components will be released to the States/UTs after the approval of Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee(CSMC) and with concurrence of the Integrated Finance Division (IFD) of the Union Ministry . Central share would be released in 3 instalments of 40%,40% and 20% each.

The scheme will be implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme except the credit linked subsidy component, which will be implemented as a Central Sector Scheme.

The scheme will cover the entire urban area consisting of 4041 statutory towns with initial focus on 500 Class I cities and it will be implemented in three phases as follows, viz,:-

 Phase-I (April 2015 – March 2017) to cover 100 Cities to be selected from States/UTs as per their willingness;

Phase – II (April 2017 – March 2019) to cover additional 200 Cities and

Phase-III (April 2019 – March 2022) to cover all other remaining Cities.

However, there will be flexibility in covering number of cities in various phases and inclusion of additional cities may be considered by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation in case there is demand from States and cities and have capacity to include them in earlier phases. Credit linked subsidy component of the scheme would be implemented across the country in all statutory towns.

A Technology Sub-mission under the Mission has been targeted to be set up to facilitate adoption of modern, innovative and green technologies and building material for faster and quality construction of houses. The Technology Sub-Mission will also work on the following aspects:

 i) Design & Planning

ii) Innovative technologies & materials iii) Green buildings using natural resources and

 iv) Earthquake and other disaster resistant technologies .

Pradhan Matri Awas Yojona- scheme popularly termed as ' Housing for All by 2022' is aimed at providing 2.95 crores of urban housing by 2022. It has been launched by PM Modi .

People who will be benefitted through this scheme will be homeless ones, poor urban people and belonging to EWS and LIG categories.

Salient features of the Guidelines of  PMAY (U) :-

1) A beneficiary family will comprise husband , wife and unmarried children. The beneficiary family should not own a pucca house ( an all weather dwelling unit) either in his/her name or I the name of any member of his/her family in any part of India

2) The activities required for preparation of Housing For All Plan of Action (HFAPo) will be funded by the Ministry in the ration of 75:25 and in case of North Eastern and special category states in the ratio of 90:10

3) A State Level Technical Cell(SLTC) with 5-10 professionals will be supported with the approval of CSMC . CSMC can increase the size of such cell on the requirement of State/UT.

4) City Level Technical Cell with 2-4 professionals depending on the size of the city and quantum of work will also be supported by the mission with approval of CSMCHowever, on 25th May 2016 Deputy Secretary to the Gov't of India , Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation , S K Valithan vide his letter No.N-11027/19/2015-HFA.1/Vol.2(FTS-13988) in the subject mentioned as ' Amendments in the Guidelines of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)-HFA(U) Mission ' categorically mentioned ," If the beneficiary has a pucca house with carpet area of 21 sq mt or semi-pucca house, lacking in one of the facilities (i.e., room, kitchen, toilet , bath or a combination of them ) , it may be taken up for enhancement subject to ULB/State ensuring safety of the house and adherence to following conditions :

1) The total carpet area after enhancement must not be less than 21 sq mt and must not be more than 30 sq mt

2) Enhancement shall mean addition of minimum carpet area of 9.0 square metres into the existing house with pucca construction of at least one habitable too or too with kitchen and/or bathroom and/or toilet conforming to NBC norms  

Interestingly , CPI-M local bodies have ao far been successful to register the names of their party cadres depriving many of the genuine beneficiaries of this scheme.

For, example in the central govt. guidelines there is no mention of imposition of tax by the local authorities upon the beneficiaries. But almost all the municipalities are busy in forceful collection of undertakings from the possible beneficiaries about the payment of tax imposed upon them once they are selected for this scheme.

TIWN has collected one such document related to the so called undertaking written in Bengali script simply to befool the Centre.

Unfortunately, the opposition party Trinamool Congress is not at all interested to raise this issue which is closely related with common people.

Even more unfortunate is that BJP state unit too is merely silent on this issue. Actually TMC and BJP leaders of Tripura are practically unaware of the entire scheme.