House panel finds rural housing scheme implementation gaps

• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development (PSCRD) accuses the government of failing to identify genuine beneficiaries for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) scheme.
• The scheme relies on 14-year-old data from the Socio-Economic Caste Census (SECC) of 2011 to identify beneficiaries.
• The government has not increased the financial aid given under the scheme, which aims to provide “housing for all”.
• The per-unit cost of houses under PMAY-G should be increased to ₹4 lakh due to rising construction costs and inflationary pressures.
• The committee recommends a comprehensive review of the existing list of eligible beneficiaries and expanding eligibility criteria to include semi-permanent structures.
• The extension of the scheme largely handles the backlog of the original programme.