Government announces ‘one nation, one ration card,’ rental housing scheme for migrant workers



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NEW DELHI: The Center announced Thursday the launch of a plan to provide affordable housing to urban poor / migrant workers, and extended the interest subsidy plan for middle-income families until March 2021 to boost demand for housing .
The extension of the CLSS (credit-linked subsidy scheme) will benefit 2.5 lakh middle-income families during this fiscal year and will lead to an investment of more than Rs 70 billion in the housing sector, in addition to job creation.
In announcing the decisions, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that “the government will launch a new scheme under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) for urban poor / migrant workers to provide them with an affordable life with affordable rent.”
He said that the migrant workforce and the urban poor face challenges in finding affordable houses.
Under the scheme, government-funded housing in cities will be converted to affordable rental housing complexes (ARHCs) under PPP mode through licensees.
The new scheme will incentivize manufacturing units, industries, institutions, associations to develop and operate such complexes on their private lands. It will incentivize central and state government agencies to develop ARHC.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs will issue detailed guidelines on the initiative.
Other than that, Sitharaman announced the extension of CLSS until March 2021.
The CLSS for the middle-income group, which has an annual income of Rs 6-18 lakh, was put into operation from May 2017. The scheme was extended until March 2020 and has so far benefited 3.3 lakh families.
“The government will extend the CLSS scheme until March 2021. About 2.5 lakh of middle-income families will benefit during 2020-21,” said the finance minister.
This will lead to an investment of more than Rs 70,000 crore in the housing sector and will create jobs.
“This will also help stimulate demand for steel, cement, transportation and other construction materials,” Sitharaman said.
Under this scheme, a home buyer can take advantage of the interest subsidy of up to Rs 2.7 lakh. The scheme is led by the National Housing Bank (NHB) and the Housing Finance Companies (HFC).
The CLSS under PMAY makes the mortgage loan affordable since the subsidy provided in the interest component reduces the client’s outflow on the mortgage loan.
The announcements came a day after the Center said it will send notices to real estate regulators to extend the completion deadline for projects registered under the RERA by six months, treating Covid-19 as an act of force majeure. / of God.
The finance minister also announced the free distribution of 5 kg of food grains and 1 kg of ‘chana’ over the next two months to approximately 8 million migrants who do not have central or state ration cards.
Announcing the second tranche of the economic package, he said that about Rs 3.5 billion will be spent on this initiative.
In addition, the minister said the government will make ration cards portable under the ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’ initiative to allow migrant workers access to their ration across the country.
“This will allow migrant beneficiaries to access PDS grains from any fair price store (FPS) in the country. About 67 crore beneficiaries in 23 states that cover 83 percent of the PDS population will be covered by national portability in August 2020, “he said. .
In addition, he said 100 percent national portability will be achieved by March 2021. All union states and territories will complete full FPS automation by March 2021, he added.
Already 17 states / UTs are ready with FPS automation. These include Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, KeralaMadhya Pradesh, Goa JharkhandTripura Bihar, ABOVE, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Daman and Diu.
Under the initiative, eligible beneficiaries under the NFSA could use their authorized food grains at any fair-price store in the country using the same ration card.

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