The question whether the correct logo is being displayed on houses built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Grameen (PMAY-G) is threatening to bring the Centre and the Bengal government into conflict.
The Union rural development ministry has decided to send an inspection team to verify allegations received from BJP workers that the Bengal government has been painting “Bangla Awas Yojana” logos on PMAY-G houses.
The state government has denied the charge and sent pictures showing the PMAY-G logo displayed on houses constructed under the scheme, as stipulated, but the Centre has its doubts, a senior official at the Union rural development ministry said.
He said the inspection team would pay a “surprise visit” to Bengal without revealing dates or locations.
“It will be a surprise visit to certain areas. The state government has denied the allegations but the ministry keeps getting complaints about the renaming of the PMAY-G as Bangla Awas Yojana,” the official said.
Funds under the PMAY-G are shared 60:40 between the Centre and the states except for special category states — mostly hill states — which need to shoulder just 10 per cent of the financial burden.
The official said similar complaints had come from Odisha alleging the Naveen Patnaik government was painting a larger “Biju Pakka Ghar Yojana” logo alongside a smaller PMAY-G logo on houses built under the central scheme. He said such logo-related controversies had not been witnessed is any other state.
In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on March 16, rural development minister Giriraj Singh said that Odisha had admitted the deviation, and the Centre had viewed it seriously.
In February last year, the Union ministry had written to the Odisha government asking it to display the PMAY-G logo prominently on houses built under the scheme and desist from using the BPGY logo on them. A central team visited the state in the first week of March this year.
Singh said: “Despite (the) clear-cut advisory of having PMAY-G logo only, the logo of Biju Pakka Ghar continues to be there and in most of the cases more prominent than PMAY-G logo. Construction quality continues to be poor.”
Social activist Ashok Rao defended Bengal and Odisha.
“The (current) central government has renamed several welfare schemes (launched by past governments) after the Prime Minister,” Rao said.
“The states were not consulted before programmes like the school Midday Meal Scheme and the Indira Awas Yojana were renamed as PM Poshan and PMAY.”
Rao said the Centre seemed not to want to bear its share of some of the recurring costs under some of these schemes. For instance, he said, it has prodded the states to increase the monthly pay for the midday meal scheme’s more than 25 lakh cooks-cum-helpers from the current Rs 1,000 without the Centre shouldering any portion of the additional burden.
Rao said: “In such a situation, it’s not surprising if the states deviate from the central schemes’ guidelines.”
The Centre is mandated to share 60 per cent of the cost of the midday meal scheme too.
Under the PMAY-G, a beneficiary is provided Rs 1.2 lakh in the plains and Rs 1.3 lakh in the hills to build a house. The parliamentary standing committee on rural development has in its report on the ministry’s demand for grants recommended that the sums be increased “suitably”.
