Urban development ministry invites online applications from urban poor for affordable houses

Beginning today, the ministry of housing and urban poverty alleviation will accept online applications by the urban poor for affordable houses under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana(Urban).

The ministry of HUPA and the Common Services Centre e-Governance Services India Limited of the ministry of electronics and information technology on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to facilitate online submission of applications by prospective applicants.

Out of the over two lakh Common Services Centre across the country, about 60,000 located in urban areas will enable online submission of applications from today (3 November 2016) at a nominal cost of Rs25 per application.

As per the MoU, CSCs will also facilitate printing of the acknowledgement receipt with beneficiary photograph, which will help applicants in tracking application status. Beneficiaries have to visit the nearest CSC for seeking assistance for seeking benefits of PMAY (Urban) online. In case the beneficiary does not have Aadhar Card, CSCs will enable beneficiaries in acquiring these. The process of applying online is e-KYC (Know Your Client) enabled, which means applications are submitted after due verification.

Minister of HUPA M Venkaiah Naidu said the collaboration with CSC SPV will help in bringing more urban poor under the ambit of PMAY (Urban) by addressing the difficulties associated in physical submission of applications to urban local bodies, for want of adequate help and guidance.

He said that while 1.37 million urban poor were sanctioned affordable houses during 2005-14, about 1.1 million houses have already been sanctioned for urban poor during the last one year and this will pick up further momentum through online applications.