CURATED BY – CHANDAN KUMAR CHAUBEY | CITYCHIEFNEWS

Patna, Good news for lakhs of homeless families of Bihar. The Bihar government has started a new survey from January 10 to provide pucca houses to homeless families under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PM Awas). The purpose of this survey is to identify all those families who are homeless or who do not have a pucca house.

This survey will run till March 31 and all the panchayats of the state will be included in it. Gram Panchayat employees such as assistant level employees, panchayat servants and panchayat secretaries will be involved in the survey. During the survey, the employees will go door-to-door and assess the economic condition of the families, the property they have and the living conditions.

Some special criteria have been fixed to avail the benefits of PM Awas Yojana. To avail the benefits of PM Awas Yojana, the monthly income of the beneficiary family should not exceed Rs 15,000. The family should not have a two-wheeler or three-wheeler, any land or Kisan Credit Card (KCC) limit of more than Rs 50,000. No member of the family should pay income tax or professional tax.

The last survey was conducted in 2018-19 and 11 lakh beneficiaries selected in it have not yet got houses. This time the government aims to complete the construction of 2.40 lakh houses this year. Under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, each beneficiary gets financial assistance of Rs 1.30 lakh, which also includes labor cost under MNREGA.

Apart from this, the state government also gives additional assistance of Rs 1 lakh to the beneficiaries to buy land. The main objective of this survey is to identify all the homeless families who are eligible under this scheme and provide them with pucca houses.