With an eye on the general elections, the Modi government has approved the continuation of the flagship Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) till December 2024. The Union cabinet has decided to continue to offer financial assistance to the 122.69 lakh houses that have been sanctioned under the scheme till March 31, 2022 — the original deadline for the scheme launched in 2015.

A government statement said 62 lakh houses have been completed. It said proposals of 40 lakh houses were received late from states and the Union territories that will require another two years to complete. Based on the requests from the states and UTs, the Union cabinet has decided to extend the implementation period of PMAY-U.

Central assistance approved since 2015 is Rs 2.03 lakh crore against Rs 20,000 crore in 2004-2014. Up to March 31, central assistance/subsidy of Rs 1.18 lakh crore has been released and Rs 85,406 crore will be released till December 31, 2024. In the Budget for fiscal 2022-23, the affordable housing scheme — the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana — has been allocated Rs 48,000 crore, across the urban and rural categories put together. Of this, Rs 28,000 crore is allocated for the PMAY (urban) and the remaining Rs 20,000 crore will be for PMAY (Gramin).

Atal pension curbs

Income taxpayers will not be allowed to enrol in the government’s social security scheme Atal Pension Yojana (APY) from October 1, according to a notification. The government introduced APY on June 1, 2015 to provide social security to workers mainly in the unorganised sector. Subscribers of the scheme get a minimum guaranteed pension of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 per month after attaining 60 years of age depending on their contributions. “... from 1st October 2022, any citizen who is or has been an income tax payer, shall not be eligible to join APY,” the finance ministry said in the notification.

The ministry has modified its earlier notification on APY. The new notification, issued on Wednesday, will not apply to subscribers who have joined or joins the scheme before October 1, 2022. In case a subscriber, who joined on or after October 1, 2022, is subsequently found to have been an income tax payer on or before the date of application, the APY account shall be closed and the accumulated pension till date would be given to the subscriber, the notification said.

Under the income tax law, people having taxable income of up to Rs 2.5 lakh are not required to pay income tax. Currently, all Indian citizens between the age group of 18-40 years can join APY through bank or post office branches. The government had co-contributed 50 per cent of the total contribution or Rs 1,000 per annum, whichever is lower, to each eligible subscriber, who joined the scheme during the period from June 2015 to March 2016. It was also subject to the condition that the subscriber was not a beneficiary of any social security scheme and also not an income taxpayer.