About 43% of homes under PMAY-Urban completed: Assam housing minister

GUWAHATI: Assam has completed construction of 65,469 houses under Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) out of the allotted 1.51 lakh units so far, a state minister said on Tuesday.

Addressing a press conference here, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Ashok Singhal said the Centre has sanctioned 1.51 lakh houses for Assam since the beginning of the scheme.

“We have completed 65,469 units in total and 32,003 houses of them were constructed during the last one year. Around 32,000 more units are at different phases of completion,” he added.

A total of Rs 293.79 crore has been utilised during 2022-23 as direct benefit transfer for construction of the dwelling units, Singhal said.

He said the government is planning to develop a satellite township at Jagiroad in Nagaon district on the land acquired from the defunct Nagaon Paper Mill of the Hindustan Paper Corp.

“This will be a world-class Amrit-Guwahati Integrated City, spread across 1,000 acres. We have appointed Singapore-based consultant Surbana Jurong for preparing the master plan, which is likely to be ready by March 31 this year,” Singhal said.

The minister, who also looks after the Irrigation Department, said all the districts of the state were instructed last year to prepare an irrigation master plan, which has been submitted by 28 districts and the remaining will do it within the next month.

“Our target is to create irrigation facilities for 10 lakh tonnes of paddy across the state. So far, irrigation potential has been created in 7.86 lakh hectares, but many of these schemes are defunct now,” he added.