Soon after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a whopping 66 per cent hike in the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) to Rs 79,590 crore in the Union Budget, the most interesting political signal came from Lucknow. UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath publicly emphasised that the increased flow of funds would allow Uttar Pradesh to provide houses to all remaining beneficiaries of the scheme by 2024.
Free housing for the poor under this scheme has been a fundamental driver of the BJP’s growth in the Hindi heartland, and Yogi’s comments about “saturation” housing coverage by 2024 were a revealing indicator of the BJP’s thinking on the political economy as India embarks on the road to 2024.
“In the last six years, UP has received 45.5 lakh houses under the scheme,” Yogi said. “Recently, the state received 10 lakh new houses under the scheme and the budget has now provided for 4 lakh new beneficiaries who remained to get houses. In my estimate, UP will now be completely saturated.”
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This article was first published on news18.com | FEBRUARY 09, 2023
