LOS PROFESIONALES DEL SECTOR

7.2.1 Recognizing the above situation, some dedicated schemes of Government both Central and State are operating in rural areas, which are primarily subsidy/

grant/credit-cum-subsidy based.These

Schemes have been successful, however, on account of budgetary constraints and the magnitude of the requirements both in numbers and amounts, the need of the hour is to ensure greater credit flow for rural housing through bankable and sustainable schemes through the existing institutional framework particularly of banks, MFIs, select HFCs etc. so as to bring the vast majority of the rural people in the formal institutional credit framework.

7.2.2 Indira Awaas Yojana: The Government of India has been taking all necessary steps to meet the shortage of rural housing for quite some time. However, rural housing initiatives in its true sense and vigour in India began with the Indira Awaas Yojana (IAY) which was launched as a sub-scheme of RLEGP in 1985-86. From April 1989, it became a sub-scheme of the Jawahar Rozgar Yojana (JRY). Since 1996, however, it was delinked from JRY and made an independent scheme.

7.2.3 Indira Awaas Yojana is a Government of India social welfare programme to provide housing for the rural poor in India. It is one of the major flagship programs of the Ministry of Rural Development to construct houses for BPL population in the villages.

The financial assistance provided for new

construction in the form of full grant is

` 45,000/- per unit for plain areas &

` 48,500/- for hilly/difficult areas. Further, an IAY beneficiary can avail top-up loan upto ` 20,000/- under the Differential Rate of Interest (DRI Scheme) from any Nationalized Bank at an interest rate of 4 per cent per annum. Furthur, an assistance for up-gradation of unserviceable kutcha

house to pucca/semi pucca house is

` 15,000/- . Upto 20 per cent of the total funds can be utilized for up gradation of existing kutcha houses and toward subsidy for construction of houses under credit-cum-subsidy Scheme.The houses are allotted in the name of the woman or jointly b e t w e e n h u s b a n d a n d w i f e . T h e construction of the houses is the sole responsibility of the beneficiary and engagement of contractors is strictly

prohibited. Sanitary latrine and smokeless chullah are required to be constructed along with each IAY house for which additional financial assistance is provided from Total Sanitation Campaign and Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana respectively.This scheme has been operating since 1985 and provides subsidies and cash-assistance to people in villages to construct houses for themselves.

The broad purpose of the Scheme is to provide financial assistance to some of the weakest sections of society for them to upgrade or construct a house of respectable quality for their personal living.

The vision of the government is to replace all temporary (kutchcha) houses from Indian villages by 2017. Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes, freed bonded laborers, minorities and non-SC/ST rural households in the BPL category, widows and next-of-kin to defence personnel/

paramilitary forces killed in action (irrespective of their income criteria), ex-servicemen and retired members of paramilitary forces residing in rural areas form the primary target group of eligible candidates for the IAY Scheme.

IAY is an allocation based, centrally sponsored Scheme funded on a cost sharing basis between the Central Government and the State Government in the 75 per cent:25 per cent ratio, except in case of North-eastern states and Union Territories (UTs). For NE states the central government funds 90 per cent and 100 per cent for the UTs.

The funds are allocated to the states based on 75 per cent weightage of rural housing shortage and 25 per cent weightage of poverty ratio. As per the Budget 2011, the total funds allocated for IAY have been set at ` 10,000 crore for construction of houses for BPL families. since 1985, 25.2 million houses have been constructed under the scheme. a year wise break up of total houses constructed under IAY is given below for the last 5 years:

Table 50 : Year-Wise Breakup of total Houses Constructed Under IAY

Year Total houses constructed under IAY

2005–2006 1,551,923 launched by the Government of India in 2005, represents a Vision for rural infrastructure development on a national scale. Among its various components, the P r o g r a m m e a l s o i n c l u d e s b a s i c amenities such as water, sanitation, sewage, local roads and connectivity etc and is being implemented by the Government of India. It covers providing safe drinking water to all the under developed areas in the country, and to develop housing facilities for the poor.

71.8 lakh houses were constructed during the first phase of Bharat Nirman against a target of 60 lakh houses, and now the Plan has been extended to the year 2014 and the targeted number of houses to be constructed has been increased to 120 lakh houses. Against this target, more than 53.07 lakh houses have already been constructed / upgraded at a cost of around 20,976 crore.

7.2.5 State run Housing Schemes: Long before the Central government introduced any scheme for rural housing some state g o v e r n m e n t s h a d r u r a l h o u s i n g programmes. Currently, around 15 States/UTs like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu have their own schemes, whose scope extends much beyond those of the

IAY. During the eleventh five year plan, Government of Tamil Nadu launched the

“Kaliagnar Housing Scheme (KVVT)” as an add on to the IAY. Under the scheme, all huts in rural areas will be replaced by permanent houses with concrete roof.

ii. Kerala: The EMS Housing Scheme envisioned with the objective that there should be no homeless family in the state.

Under their housing scheme ` 1 lakh assistance is provided to each BPL SC family. Similarly, under the housing Scheme of ST Department, an assistance of ` 1.25 lakh is provided to eligible ST important schemes initiated by the State are Sardar Awas Yojana implemented by District Panchayats, Dr. Ambedkar Awas Yojana for assisting SC families and Deen Dayal Upadhyay Awas Yojana for

primitive tribal groups. In the year 2009, all the rural housing schemes of the State Government were brought under a common platform with uniform financial assistance of ` 55,500/ per unit and selection of beneficiaries from BPL list.

iv. Karnataka: The State Government is having two major schemes to help the homeless people. These are the Basava Vasathi Yojane which is for Special Occupational Groups and the Ambedkar Housing Scheme which is for the Economically Weaker Section of the society. Under Basava Vasathi Yojane for economically weaker sections in rural areas, the assistance provided is ` 63,500/- of which ` 50,000 is subsidy provided for all categories, ` 10,000 is provided as loan under DRI Scheme and

` 3,500 is beneficiary contribution. Under the Ambedkar Housing Scheme a total subsidy of ` 50,000 is provided as subsidy and ` 10,000 as bank loan under DRI Scheme the beneficiary contribution is ` 3,500/-.

v. Rajasthan: In the year 2011, the Government of Rajasthan launched the 'Mukhya Mantri Gramin BPL Awaas Yojana'as a complimentary scheme to IAY. The scheme aims to provide housing to 10 lakh rural BPL households in the course of next 4 years. The scheme has been financed through a loan of ` 3400 crore arranged by the state government from HUDCO for Zilla Parishads in the state.

7.2.6 These State housing schemes are a supplement to the efforts for rural housing under IAY. There is also a major thrust on all BPL housing schemes to construct earthquake resistant housing design and construction. Housing Fund to enable primary lending institutions to access funds for extending housing finance to targeted groups in rural areas at competitive rates. The corpus of the fund for 2008-09 was ` 2,000 crore which was enhanced to ` 3000 crore for 2011-12. Till date, a total amount of ` 8778.18 crore has been received by NHB under the Fund, and the Bank has disbursed an amount of ` 8,783.99 crore towards refinance for rural housing for the targeted segments benefiting 3.36 lakh dwelling units (Table 51).

7.3.2 With the advent of the Rural Housing Fund, many housing finance institutions have been persuaded to increase their housing loan portfolios in rural areas.

This has resulted in not only a better geographical distribution of housing finance and an increased penetration of housing loans among the under privileged segments of the society, but h a s a l s o b r o u g h t a g r e a t e r understanding of the characteristics and contours of the rural housing finance market, enabling the various players to design better and more targeted products for the rural populace.

Disbursements under the Rural Housing Fund have helped in creation of dwelling units for women, marginal farmers, small artisans, members of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and minority communities. During 2011-12, disbursements aggregating ` 3003 crore were made under RHF . For the year 2012-13, the Government has allocated a budget of ` 4000 Crore towards the fund.