Saturday, 05 Oct, 2024
By: Anshul Vipat
Over 69 percent or 94 lakh of 123 lakh houses built under the PMAY- Gramin scheme are either wholly or jointly owned by women in rural areas
According to the latest SBI Research study of the scheme, over 69 percent or 94 lakh of 123 lakh houses built under the PMAY- Gramin scheme are either wholly or jointly owned by women in rural areas. Every house, according to the research, comes with basic facilities including the gas connection under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, water connection and electricity.
Since June 2015, the government has approved Rs 2.03 lakh crore in central subsidy to 123 lakh homes, while the total investment needed for the scheme which seeks to build 20 million homes by 2022 is Rs 8.31 lakh crore. To make these houses, the Government of India committed a sum of Rs 1.843 lakh crore, of which Rs 1.13 lakh crore has been released; of this, Rs 1.01 lakh crore has been spent.
The report also notes the ownership patterns from the bank credit disbursals, which clearly shows the number of female borrowers in new disbursements has increased significantly in FY22 in tier 3 & 4 districts.
Among the top 20 districts with the highest share of female borrowers in fresh home loan disbursal in FY22, six districts are from Chhattisgarh, three each from Gujarat and Haryana. These districts have on an average 49 percent female share in the total population.
But what is more interesting is that in districts like Dang in Gujarat, as many as 86 per cent of new home loan borrowers are women, while their share in the overall population is only 50 per cent. Dang is one of the most economically distressed district out of 640 districts in India and more than 94 percent of the population are tribals. Next is Arwal in Bihar, which was once a naxal-dominated district where females constitute only 48 percent of the district population. More than 75 percent of the loans borrowers are women. Gujarat's Botad is next in the list with 63 percent share of female borrowers.
Source: SBI Research
Haryana’s Palwal, which has 47 percent women population, has a total of 58 percent women loan borrowers. The other districts which have more than/up to 50 percent female loan borrowers include Jashpur, Kondagaon, Gariyaband, Kanker, Surguja and Dantewada of Chhattisgarh, Sonipat and Kaithal of Haryana, Ballia of Bihar, Baghpat of Uttar Pradesh, Bagheshwar of Uttarakhand and West Godavari of Andhra Pradesh. The fact that such tribal dominated areas are pivotal in women empowerment needs to celebrated.
As the statistics indicate, the country seems to have made significant progress in the direction of meeting its goal. On the face of it, the scheme aims at providing a two-room pucca house to the poor. But the real outcome of these 25 square metre houses is way beyond. By providing homes under the PMAY-G, the government has improved women's participation in household financial decision-making and met their goal to possess a pucca house.
For some, living in a pucca house with minimal facilities boosts their social inclusion, for some it provides security and economic power while for many the houses have given them social status and self-esteem. They all got a house made of brick and cement. But all have a different take on the real benefits they are accruing from it. This means the PMAY-G scheme is scripting a new transformation of these areas in a silent mode.
With a major boost in the budgetary allocation for the year ahead, it is expected that the people would have their dreams realised when the Centre, according to PM Modi’s vision, has its eye set on providing ‘housing for all’.
