State minister Hardeep Singh Puri, speaks about 1.20 crore job creation under PMAY-Urban.

On December 27, Hardeep Singh Puri, State Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs said that approximately 1.20 crore jobs have so far been generated under PMAY-Urban through forward and backward linkages to around 250 auxiliary industries including steel, brick kilns, cement, paint, hardware, sanitary etc.

According to investments made within the scheme about 568 lakh metric tonnes would be required for approved homes, roughly 178 lakh metric tonne of cement were already consumed in completed homes.

The sanctioned houses will require approximately 130 lakh tonne of steel; around 40 lakh metric tonne of steel in completed homes have already been consumed, said the minister.

He also told that 1 crore houses were already approved out of a confirmed demand of 1.12 crore houses in urban areas. In fact, there are 57 lakh houses in different phases of construction, nearly 30 lakh of which were completed.

Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary of the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry reported that PMAY comprised so far a range of social groups consisting of approximately 5.8 lakh senior citizens, 2 lakh building workers, 1.5 lakh local workers, 1.5 lakh artisans, 0.63 lakh differently-abled (Divyang), 770 transgender and 500 leprosy patients.

As of today, nearly Rs 60,000 crore central assistance has already been issued, the ministry said. Houses approved so far under PMAY include an investment of about Rs 5.70 lakh crore with Rs 1.6 lakh crore central assistance.

At the moment, works of about Rs 3 lakh crore are continuing and the whole activity will trigger investment of more than Rs 7 lakh crore after achieving the PMAY targets.

The Government has provided for a raising of Rs 60,000 crore, of which Rs 38,000 crore have been generated and allocated, for Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR).     

In the National Housing Bank (NHB), Government has also established an Affordable Housing Fund (AHF), with a corpus of Rs. 10,000 crore using banks/financial institutions’ priority sector lending shortfall for HFC micro-financing.