The Centre has asked the states to physically verify the additional 3.5 crore beneficiaries they have listed for the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin, a housing scheme, amid suspicion that the lists are inflated with well-off people.

Social activists suggested that most of the listed households were deserving and the verified lists may have over 2 crore prospective beneficiaries.

But officials told The Telegraph that once the corrected lists come, the Centre may drastically pare the number down again to just 81 lakh.

The scheme was started in November 2016 with the aim of providing pucca houses to 2.95 crore households by 2022.

But 81 lakh of these families subsequently built houses for themselves, either with the support of state government schemes or on their own steam, reducing the existing beneficiary count to 2.14 crore. So far, 1.36 crore houses have been completed.

Officials here said that whatever the total number of additional beneficiaries the states identify on their verified lists, the Centre would select only 81 lakh of them and be content to meet the original count of 2.95 crore.

Families that have worked more days under the rural job scheme, and have aged heads and more members will be given priority.

The list of 3.5 crore includes nearly 58 lakh households from Bengal.

After the Centre had identified its original target of 2.95 lakh beneficiaries, the states had argued that many deserving families had missed out. The states were then allowed to carry out their own surveys, called Awaas Plus, through the gram sabhas.

A picture of the Pradhan Mantri Gramin Yojana web page Sourced by The Telegraph

“The state lists are based on the data submitted by the gram sabhas. No verification was done,” an official here said.

Social activist Sandeep Pradhan from Jharkhand said the gram sabhas had included many households who had got houses built under the erstwhile Indira Awas Yojana.

“I would say that 35 to 40 per cent of those on the Awaas Plus list are well off and should not be included. But at least 60 per cent need support,” Pradhan said.

The minutes of a review meeting with the states that the Union rural development ministry website has uploaded on its website say: “All the states/ UTs have been requested to do physical verification of the households registered on Awaas+ app and identify ineligible households. The names of the ineligible households shall be removed.”

Under the PMAY Gramin, the Centre provides 60 per cent of the cost of the new, two-room houses. It provides Rs 1.2 lakh for a house in the plains and Rs 1.3 lakh in hilly areas.