Chhattisgarh Cabinet approves 1.8 mn rural homes in first meeting

In the first Cabinet meeting held, the newly sworn-in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government last week approved the proposal to build 1.8 million houses in the state under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin to accelerate infrastructure development projects.

In Modi Ki Guarantee for Chhattisgarh, the BJP had promised to approve the proposal for building housing units in the first cabinet meeting.

The BJP came to power in Chhattisgarh after five years of Congress rule. Vishnu Deo Sai took oath on Wednesday as the state’s fourth chief minister, along with his two deputies, Arun Sao and Vijay Sharma.

A state government spokesperson said the Cabinet meeting decided to approve proposals for the remaining families (699,439) eligible for the permanent waiting list under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin, and the families eligible for the Awas Plus list (819,999). Under the scheme, 246,215 houses under construction will also be completed soon.

Under the yojana, a total of 1.7 million houses and another 47,090 houses for a total of 1.81 million needy eligible families will be given prompt approval, and necessary funds will be made available, the spokesperson said.

“The alleged negligence of the previous Congress government in providing its share in the scheme stalled the construction of houses, and the BJP made it a major poll plank in the recently concluded Assembly elections in the state.”

BJP spokesperson Sanjay Shrivastava said the Congress government led by Bhupesh Baghel refused to take part in the national-level programme Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana launched in 2016 and did not provide its share in the scheme. The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana aimed at providing permanent housing to 1.87 million poor families, with the shared expenditure of the centre and state in the ratio of 60:40.

The Congress spokesperson, however, refused to comment on the issue.
 

Shrivastava said the poor infrastructure, especially roads due to a lack of maintenance, had been a major scoring point in the elections. “The BJP government will give top priority to accelerate the scheme and has started the process soon after coming to power,” he said.

Besides housing, the BJP also vowed to provide tap water in each house in the next two years. The guarantee also includes developing a State Capital Region (SCR) like National Capital Region (NCR) in New Delhi. The SCR will include Raipur, Naya Raipur, Durg, and Bhilai, the industrial town that houses SAIL’s flagship entity Bhilai Steel Plant.