Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Wednesday reviewed the implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) and informed that Meghalaya has target to provide affordable housing to over 1.40 lakh households within the current financial year.
Speaking to reporters, Sangma said this year is an important year for the PMAY.
“Just to give you a comparison in the last 4 years, the target for the State was roughly around 40,000-50,000 houses and this year alone 2023-24, we have set a target of 1.40 lakh (houses),” he said.
He said “This has happened because we have been really engaging with Government of India and we have put a target to complete all the pending houses that are there in the list.”
The CM said, “We are happy to inform you that Government of India is cooperating and is engaging and discussing with us in detail and we infact have now released the second tranche of funds. Almost close to about Rs 800 crore has already been spend and almost all the houses are now on track and we should see the work started in almost all of them.”
Expressing optimism to achieve such a big target, Sangma said, “We are hopeful, this is the working season, that we will be able to complete 1.40 lakh target that we have and if that happened it will be a very big achievement for the department and the government as a whole and with that we will be able to complete the pending beneficiaries who should be getting the houses.”
He informed that the government has appointed a mission director to look into the speedy implementation of the project. He will assisted by two assistant mission directors.
“Also one ADC at every district level, who is incharge of the mission and review at the DC level takes place every week and at CM’s level it takes place every month and all the DCs and BDOs have been asked to make at least two visits to different villages and different blocks to review the work and visit the houses and continuously update the mission director on the work that is going on,” he added.