The Devendra Fadnavis led Maharashtra Government decided to wave off the security deposit money for the Economically Weaker section in the state. This step is said to be taken in order to achieve the housing for all target of nearly 19 lakhs housing units in the state as the people belonging to the EWS [Economically Weaker Section] are unable to deposit the security amount to own home under the Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojna [PMAY].
The Government approved 79 projects to construct 2.15 lakh houses under the same scheme in January this year. While deciding to wave off the deposit money the Government also notified the same, “The economically weaker sections are required to pay different types of fees under the Beneficiary Led (Individual House) Construction’ (BLC) resulting in low response to the PMAY scheme. Therefore, it has been decided that the security deposit will not be charged for economically weaker sections under the BLC under the PMAY.”
The Narendra Modi-led Central Government offers a subsidy to the beneficiaries of PMAY scheme and the State Government is contributing Rs 1 lakh. The pre-approved 2.15 lakh affordable homes in the state are allocated to different income groups that include 1.40 lakh houses for the economically weaker sections, 37,656 houses for the lower income group, 14,766 for the middle-income group and 166 houses for the higher income group.
All these affordable housing units are planned to be built in Pune, Konkan, Nagpur, Nashik, Amaravati, Solapur, Pimpri, Washim, Barshi (Solapur), Parbhani, Gadchiroli, Ichalkaranji (Kolhapur).
As per the latest report, the State Government constructed more than 1400 housing units in this financial year i.e. 2018-19 and 55,695 affordable homes were built in the previous financial year 2017-18.