Understand the Centre’s guidelines first and make them comprehensible for the people, Jharkhand urban development minister CP Singh asked his officials when he found them confused over the ‘Housing for All’ scheme during a workshop on Thursday.
After pulling up the officials, Singh admitted that the guidelines drafted in chaste Hindi had even left him confused on many points. But, he said it was the duty of the officials to seek clarity if necessary and keep an easy-to-understand version in the public domain.
The Centre-sponsored ‘Housing for All’ scheme aims at making 15 Jharkhand cities slum-free by 2022. Accordingly, the state urban development department had invited applications from the beneficiaries by September 28. However, the minister said there was no rationale in keeping the September 28 as the deadline as the scheme would continue till 2022.
According to the scheme, the Centre will give `1 lakh per house assistance under the redevelopment of slums component while the middle-class families, who earn `25,000 to `50,000, will also be benefited through an affordable housing through credit-linked subsidy—the centre will give subsidy of 6.5% up to the loan of `6 lakh.
On Thursday. the state urban development department had organised a state-level workshop on the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Housing for All) scheme to discuss various technical points with the officials and public representatives of 14 urban local bodies (ULBs).
{{/usCountry}}On Thursday. the state urban development department had organised a state-level workshop on the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Housing for All) scheme to discuss various technical points with the officials and public representatives of 14 urban local bodies (ULBs).
{{/usCountry}}Ranchi deputy mayor Sanjeev Vijayvargiya said that the scheme was yet not clear in the officials’ mind and the government seemed to be in a hurry to implement it “to pat its back.” He said there was a huge communication gap between the department and the ULBs about the guidelines and finally the beneficiaries were the victim of the official confusion.
However, municipal administration director Shashi Ranjan Prasad Singh in said, “This is a new scheme. We are still working out how to implement the programme. There will be amendments as the scheme progresses.”
Union government’s housing and urban poverty alleviation director RS Singh explained how the credit-linked subsidy scheme would bring down the EMIs.
He said the current EMI on an admissible loan component of `6 lakh at the interest rate of 10.50% would be around `6,632 per month. With credit-linked subsidy to 6.50%, an EMI would come down to `4,050 per month, benefiting the urban poor by `2,582 per month. The loan will be applicable for 15 years, he said and hence it would end up giving a long-term benefit.