Srinagar, Mar 15: The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) has led to the construction of 5504 houses in Baramulla district, including 675 houses in the Gulmarg Constituency.
This information was revealed in response to an un-starred assembly question tabled by MLA Gulmarg Constituency Farooq Ahmad Shah regarding the implementation of the scheme in the region.
The government said the scheme aims to provide affordable housing to the rural poor and follows a strict set of eligibility criteria to ensure that the most deserving families benefit from it.
Initially, the selection criteria included factors such as being houseless or residing in kutcha houses with one or two rooms.
“Households were ineligible if they owned a motorized vehicle, agricultural equipment, or a fishing boat. Additionally, applicants were disqualified if any family member was employed in government service, earned more than Rs 10,000 per month, paid income tax, or owned a landline phone or refrigerator,” it said.
The Government of India has since revised the selection criteria. Under the new guidelines, a household remains eligible if it is houseless or resides in a kutcha house with one or two rooms. However, the updated rules exclude households that own mechanised three- or four-wheel agricultural equipment or have non-agriculture enterprises registered with the government.
The income threshold has also been revised, raising the ineligibility cap to Rs 15,000 per month per family member. Moreover, households with 2.5 acres or more of irrigated land or five acres or more of un-irrigated land are now excluded.
The government further said that the revised criteria also prioritize specific vulnerable groups, including households with no adult members aged between 16 and 59, female-headed households without an adult male member, families with no literate adults above 25 years, and households with disabled members and no able-bodied adult.
“Additionally, landless households dependent on manual labour are given priority. Certain marginalised groups, such as destitute households, manual scavengers, Primitive Tribal Groups, and legally released bonded labourers, are compulsorily included in the scheme,” the government said in its reply.
