The Housing Department has only completed 88,395 dwelling units (DUs), which constituted 17%, against the target of 5,17,531 DUs, for the urban poor as on March, 2021, in Karnataka, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has found.
The CAG report on "Housing Schemes for Urban Poor in Karnataka" of the year 2022, which was tabled in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, noted that under Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) and Beneficiary Led Individual House Construction (BLC) of the Housing Department, projects were taken up for 5,17,531 beneficiaries out of the 13,71,592 prospective beneficiaries (38%) identified through demand survey as on March 2021.
As against the approved 5,17,531 DUs, only 88,395 DUs (17%) were completed as of March 2021.
The construction of 3,28,499 DUs (63%) were yet to be (March 2021) commenced indicating that achieving the mission goal of Housing for All by 2022 was a difficult prospect.
Ineffective survey
The CAG report said the demand survey for assessing the requirement of housing for urban poor was not effective and carried the risk of exclusion of eligible beneficiaries as only 13.72 lakh beneficiaries were identified in the survey as against 20.35 lakh people requiring affordable housing in Karnataka Housing Policy, 2016.
Only 3.43 lakh out of 5.17 lakh beneficiaries were attached to the approved AHP and BLC projects after due validation using unique identification numbers resulting in beneficiaries drawing multiple benefits under same and different levels.
As Aadhaar details of spouse was not considered, "facilitating the spouse to claim benefits under different verticals of the same which was irregular", it said.
The report also flagged the deficiency in the selection of beneficiaries and said 44% of the actual beneficiaries were not even part of the prospective beneficiary list derived from the demand survey. “This resulted in extension of scheme benefits to ineligible beneficiaries such as those with annual income ₹3 lakh and those already having pucca houses.”
Joint inspection of the houses constructed under the scheme revealed that 41% of the houses visited were high cost multi-storey buildings having carpet area more than 30 square meter and did not fall within the unit cost of ₹5 lakh prescribed under the scheme.
Withheld funds
The Centre withheld ₹1,003.55 crore due to non-fulfilment of prescribed condition by the State government and due to shortfall in collection of beneficiary contribution and ULB share of ₹8,360.78 crore. "This resulted in cancellation of AHP projects and non-provision of civic infrastructure for completed houses envisioned under the scheme," the CAG said.
