look news india
With the resolve to provide a safe roof to every homeless and poor citizen of Uttar Pradesh, the Yogi Adityanath government has made a major and important change in the rules of the Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana (Rural). It has often been seen that due to the technical conditions of the Central Government’s Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) or the absence of names in the old lists of Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC), many extremely needy families were deprived of the benefit of permanent houses. To root out this problem and provide government assistance to the last person in the society, the state government has made the eligibility criteria of the state-funded Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana more inclusive and comprehensive.
According to the new guidelines issued from the government level, many such sections have been formally added to the priority list of the scheme which were facing social and economic insecurity for a long time:
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Ultra-poor families identified under ‘Zero Poverty’ campaign: The poorest families identified in the survey of the Zero Poverty Campaign, which is being run to free the state from extreme poverty, will now be allotted houses on priority basis.
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Destitute and Young Widowed Women: Eligible widowed women aged between 18 to 40 years, who do not have a permanent house to live in and no permanent source of income, have been included under the special category.
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Persons with disabilities and families suffering from serious illness: In case the head or member of the family is disabled or the shelterless families affected by serious diseases like leprosy, kala-azar and cancer are being given priority.
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Natural disaster, fire victims and destitute families: Victim families who have lost their homes in floods, landslides, fires or other unexpected accidents.
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Vantangiya, Musahar, Kol, Tharu and Sahariya communities: Instructions are issued to cover 100% tribal and deprived rural communities cut off from the mainstream.
Under the Mukhyamantri Awas Yojana, financial assistance of ₹ 1,20,000 (one lakh twenty thousand rupees) is transferred directly to the bank account of selected rural beneficiaries in three different installments through DBT (Direct Benefit Transfer) for constructing permanent houses. Apart from this, during the construction of the house, the beneficiary is also given 90 days of unskilled labor under MNREGA, which provides additional financial support. A separate amount of ₹ 12,000 is also provided for construction of permanent toilet along with the house in coordination with Swachh Bharat Mission (Rural).
To maintain complete transparency in the scheme and eliminate the interference of middlemen, the government has implemented a three-tier verification system. The forms of eligible applicants are verified by the Village Development Officer (VDO), Gram Panchayat Officer (VPO) and Sector Incharge at the block level. Applicants also have to give an affidavit that they have not availed the benefit of any other government housing scheme of the Central or State Government in the past. If a person is found to be ineligible and availing benefits by concealing wrong documents or facts, then strict rules have been laid down to recover the entire amount from him.
In all 75 districts of the state including Lucknow, Gorakhpur, Varanasi, Prayagraj, Bareilly, Meerut, Development Block Officers (BDO) and District Rural Development Agency (DRDA) have been given clear instructions to compile the list of new eligible beneficiaries through Gram Sabhas. With this step, the dream of lakhs of destitute families living in rural areas of the state of having their own permanent house will come true.