New Delhi: To give a push to the National Mission for Urban Housing 2022, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley may announce some sops under the scheme in the upcoming Union Budget 2018.
According to sources, an increase in interest subsidy for houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana may be announced in the Budget. The government is also planning to increase the size of houses by adding an additional 60 meters for houses available to people under Rs 6 lakh income group. Size for houses available for higher income group can also go up by 10-15 meters.
Currently, due to smaller houses available under PMAY, the scheme has found not many takers.
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana
Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna or Housing for All scheme was launched in June 2015 with an aim to provide a roof to 20 million urban poor by 2022. In order to do so, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation has set a route map and has also made clear the eligibility criteria a prospective applicant needs to meet.
The scheme has four basic components - slum rehabilitation, affordable housing, credit linked interest subsidy and beneficiary-led individual house construction or enhancement.
Central grant of one lakh rupees per house, on an average, will be available under the slum rehabilitation programme. A State Government would have flexibility in deploying this slum rehabilitation grant to any slum rehabilitation project taken for development using land as a resource for providing houses to slum dwellers.
Under the Credit-Linked Interest Subsidy component, interest subsidy of 6.5 percent on housing loans availed up to a tenure of 15 years will be provided to EWS/LIG categories, wherein the subsidy pay-out on NPV basis would be about Rs.2.3 lakh per house for both the categories. 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.
--By Prakash Priyadarshi
