The Punjab Council of Ministers (CoM), led by Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, on Friday gave the go-ahead for 'The Punjab Shehri Awas Yojana-2017' to provide free housing to eligible houseless SC/BC urban families.Urban households with an annual income of less than Rs. 3 lac in the first phase and Rs.5 lac in the second phase would be eligible to claim free housing facility under the scheme, being launched to implement a major poll promise of the Congress government.The Chief Minister, however, gave strict instructions to the concerned departments to ensure that utmost care is taken to ensure that the scheme impacts the real beneficiaries. Often the true beneficiaries fail to get the benefit of social welfare schemes due to errors of inclusion (where the wrong persons end up getting included in the list) or errors of exclusion (the real beneficiaries remain out of the ambit, usually lacking even awareness of the schemes), he observed, adding that extreme care should be taken to avoid such errors.An official spokesperson said after a cabinet meeting here that the scheme also envisages subsidized housing through in-situ Slum Re-development to eligible slum dwellers, besides affordable housing through concession in EDC, CLU etc. to private developers. It also provides for elimination of stamp duty/registration charges or any other state government cess or social infrastructure fund etc. for eligible beneficiaries/urban poor having annual income from all sources amounting to less than Rs. 3 lacs.
The scheme would also provide facility of cheap home loans to Lower Income Group (LIG) families (having annual income from all sources less than Rs. 6 lac) and Middle Income Group (MIG) families (having annual income from all sources less than Rs. 18 lac).Land from the departments of Rural Development, Local Government or any other department suitable for construction of Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) houses would be transferred free of cost to the Housing & Urban Development department. In case the land identified for this purpose belongs to some other department of the government, the state level sanctioning and monitoring committee (SLSMC) will be authorized to take decision to utilize this land through Local Government department (Urban Local Bodies)/Housing & Urban Development department (development authorities) in their respective jurisdiction under this scheme, with the consent of the concerned department.Of the total recorded population of 2.77 crore in Punjab, 37.49% live in urban areas. In view of the fact that more than 50% of the state's population is forecast to be living in urban areas by 2041, affordable housing for urban poor has become a necessity, which the Captain Amarinder government is striving to address through such measures, said the official spokesperson.