Talking of PM Awaas Yojana impact, Maurya recalls humble past

LUCKNOW: Talking about how a record number of houses for poor built during the BJP rule had helped the common man, deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya on Saturday recalled his humble past when his mother would climb the roof of his hutment to fix leakage during the rainy season.

“Besides helping the poor, schemes like the PM Awaas Yojana were also part of the campaign to empower women as the ownership of these houses for the poor is being given to women,” Maurya said at the UP BJP headquarters in Lucknow on Saturday.

“The sensitivity of our BJP governments is there for all to see. In UP, before 2017 when Samajwadi Party government was in power, only 18,000 houses were built under the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana. In contrast, the BJP government built 44 lakh houses from 2017 to 2022 in Uttar Pradesh,” he said.

Maurya said: “Those who hail from a rural background would know what life meant when the roof of their makeshift, thatched roof hut would start leaking. I remember that my mother would fix the leakage with a sack to cover herself from rain ,as my family like so many other poor didn’t even have an umbrella.”

“Today, things have changed. Under PM Awaas Yojana, 3 crore houses have been built across the country. Of these, 2.12 crore have been built in rural India and about 58 lakh houses have come up in urban India. The government spent about ₹1,95000 crore for the scheme in rural India alone,” he said.

Over all, for an estimated 3 crore families, the BJP government had spent ₹3 lakh crore on the scheme, he said.

Maurya also spoke about the toilets that the BJP government helped build in rural areas. “It is there for all to see how our visionary Prime Minister Narendra Modi has focused on the poor. From a good house to toilets, free gas connection under Pradhan Mantri Ujjawala Yojana, power supply under Pradhan Mantri Saubhagya Yojana, Jal Jivan Mission as part of which all houses in rural areas would have access to pure drinking tap water, things are changing rapidly for the poor. There was a time when former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had said that he would send ₹1 from Delhi but only 15 paise would reach the intended beneficiaries. Now, under PM Modi, each and every penny is reaching the beneficiary,” Maurya said.

Maurya also said the “double ration” scheme to help the poor hit by Covid surge had affected the poor.

“The Centre had spent ₹80,000 crore under the scheme so far,” he said of the scheme which he said was driven by Modi’s concern that no poor should go to bed hungry. He also spoke of the one nation, one ration card and said this move too had helped the people during Covid times.