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NEW DELHI: The Centre on Friday sanctioned 6.5 lakh houses under PM Awas Yojana (Urban) taking the total number of houses being funded under this scheme to over one crore. Housing minister Hardeep Singh Puri said all construction will be completed by March 2021 ahead of the deadline a year later and 32 lakh units have already been handed over to beneficiaries.

According to the report released by Puri, Andhra Pradesh leads the list of states where 20 lakh houses have been sanctioned and Uttar Pradesh is second with 15.54 lakh houses. The minister claimed UP registered the maximum improvement after the Yogi Adityanath government came to power while Delhi has not sent a single proposal since the scheme was launched in 2015.

The Centre has set the target to complete 1.12 crore houses for the urban poor, which includes interest subsidy to first time home buyers. Though originally it had estimated the housing shortage around 1.2 crore, later it was brought down after states submitted fresh demand based on their new assessment soon after Modi government came to power in 2014. The scheme was launched in June 2015.

PM Narendra Modi termed the sanctioning of one crore houses as a “momentous achievement for the urban poor and the middle class”.

