Poor implementation of Indira Awas Yoja in Lawngtlai

Lawngtlai(Mizoram), March 21: The availability of all-weather protected pucca houses is found to be the top most critical gap resulting in slow progress of the Lawngtlai district, as majority of the people in this remote district of Mizoram are still living in thatched houses.

According to a baseline survey of Minority Concentration districts of India done by Ministry Of Minority Affairs, Government of India and Indian Council of Social Science Research nearly 63.16 percent of the people in the district are found to be living in thatched houses. Also the proportion of existing households living in pucca and semi-pucca houses is very low, which reflects on the poor economic conditions of these households.

As per the report one of the prime reason for this poor condition of the district is that larger number of beneficiaries are still kept outside the purview of the Indira Awas Yoja(IAY).The number of houses constructed under the scheme is quite insufficient to fill the gap in the district.There are allegation that money meant for the IAY construction is siphoned off by the vested interested circle.

The overall qualitative and quantitative availability of housing in the rural areas of this district is not satisfactory. This calls in for vigorous implementation of the scheme with close monitoring so as to include more beneficiaries under its ambit. The area of coverage of the scheme too needs to be extended in order to include all poverty stricken households of the district.

In order to bridge this gap of social indifference ACTED under the aegis of European Union(EU) along with active support from NEICORD is actively working in the district along with six other backward districts of North East  in the project of  improving access to information and delivery of Public Schemes,  MintuDebth the Documentation and Communication Officer from ACTED, said.

As a part of this ambitious project mass awareness campaign is being done relating to ten government sponsored schemes of which IAY being one amongst them. Moreover according to the physical progress report relating to IAYfor the year 2014-2015 published by Ministry Of Rural Development, out of 1293 targeted households only 276 houses were constructed which accounts for only  21.35% of the targeted number. This purely shows the poor performance of the scheme in the state as a whole.

The IAY is a flagship program launched by the Ministry Of Rural Development, Government of India aims in providing houses to the houseless families and also those living in dilapidated and kaccha houses. The prime objective of the scheme is to help the poor in constructing and upgrading of houses especially to the members of the schedule castes and schedule tribes and also to others who are living below poverty line, by providing them with fincial assistance.

Guithuilung Daimei, the Project Mager from NEICORD strongly believed that once the people are socially aware about their rights than a much better scerio could be expected in the district. This was stated in a press release.