Failing to find enough people for allotment of free houses to the urban poor under the Manyawar Shree Kanshiramji Shahri Gareeb Awaas Yojna — launched last year — the state government now plans to relax the norms.

Currently, only people with a BPL card are eligible for the free houses. Soon, people who don’t own a plot of land or a pucca house will also be eligible. If they don’t have a BPL card, they can submit a certificate to indicate that the annual income of the family from all sources does not exceed Rs 22,500. Under the scheme, the government had planned to provide 1.1 houses every year.

The houses, which were meant to be built last year, are still under construction in most of the districts. The process of identification of applicants is also still on.

“The guidelines are being revised because in the first year of the scheme, the numbers of genuine applicants in some districts was found less than the numbers of houses developed there,” said Balvinder Kumar, Principal Secretary of Ambedkar Gram Vikas Department.

“During verification, it was also found that among the BPL card holder applicants, there were many who owned land or a pucca house in a city. This indicated they were not exactly poor,” said Kumar.

For instance, in Lucknow, over 3,400 applications were received. After verification, it was found that 364 of them were not poor and they lived in well constructed houses and also owned vehicles.

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