(ET)
The National Democratic Alliance government’s flagship cooking gas scheme is likely to be linked to the rural housing scheme in order to provide wider coverage. An announcement on widening of the programme is likely to be made in Thursday’s Budget.
Officials said the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) and the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) might be linked, which would add 10 million beneficiaries of the rural housing scheme automatically. In addition to this, the mandate of the PMUY is set to be expanded from 50 million to 80 million with an additional budgetary support of Rs 48 billion. The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe category, even if not below the poverty line, may also be included in the expanded programme.
“Providing additional allocation to the PMUY is expected to be a part of this Budget. The PMUY has invited global attention as it changed the lives of more than 30 million rural women,” said Debasish Mishra, partner, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India. The beneficiaries of the PMAY (Gramin) are largely poor rural families without houses or which are living in houses with less than two rooms. The Narendra Modi government had identified 29.5 million such families under the socio-economic and caste census (SECCC) of 2011, of which 10 million are to be provided housing by March 2019 and the rest by 2022.
