The move has already started across the country to provide 20 million new rural houses over the next five years, with 3.8 million units targeted for completion in 2024-25. The beneficiary can also complete the survey by himself/herself through the Awaassoft mobile application, which was developed specifically for this purpose.
“Self-survey can be done only once through any one mobile device so that there is no duplication or mistake,” said a senior government official. In the new survey, preference will be given to first-time beneficiaries.
The PMAY-G, the Narendra Modi government’s flagship rural housing program, has been in place for eight years. On November 20, 2016, the prime minister introduced the program from Agra.
The scheme has already sanctioned 29.5 million houses, with 27 million constructed so far. Recently, after the Modi government took office for the third time in June 2024, an extra 20 million houses were approved. These will be completed during the next five years.
The recipients were primarily identified using the 2011 Socio-Economic Caste Census. Following that, another poll called Awasplus was conducted in 2018 to cover the gaps. The latest Awasplus survey has now been started to meet the new target of 20 million rural houses in the next five years.
According to the two previous SECC-2011 lists and the first Awasplus survey, approximately 20 of the 34 states have achieved total saturation in rural housing deliveries, added the official.
The survey was so designed that 100% of houses are sanctioned to women or joint holders. In the first phase of PMAY-G, about 74% of the houses have been given either in the names of female recipients or joint owners.
The unit cost of constructing each house has been set at Rs 120,000 for plains and Rs 130,000 for hills, with an additional Rs 40,000 available through convergence with schemes like MGNREGA and Swachh Bharat Mission-Gramin.
“There was a proposal to hike the per-unit assistance, but it was dropped as it was found that the beneficiaries themselves were putting in a lot of money in building their own houses,” another official said.
The exclusion criteria for the next 20 million houses have been reduced from 13 to 10 for the first lot of houses.