New Delhi, Feb 23 (IANS): Construction of 56,368 houses has been approved under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban (PMAY-U), which are proposed to be built under the various verticals of the PMAY-U Mission.

The proposal to construct new houses was approved at the 53rd Central Sanctioning and Monitoring Committee meeting which was attended by 11 states/UTs.

Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary at the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), said, "Let's get into the mode of implementation and execution."

In a statement, the MoHUA said that the secretary has urged the states/UTs to ensure 100 per cent completion and delivery of PMAY-U houses to all its eligible beneficiaries within the stipulated time period.

"The participating states/UTs were also directed to use the online mechanism for proper implementation and monitoring of the mission," it said.

The ministry said that the progress of Light House Projects (LHPs) and Demonstration Housing Projects (DHPs) was also reviewed by the secretary.

The foundation stones for the LHPs were laid by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 1 this year.

"The houses under LHPs are being constructed in Lucknow, Ranchi, Rajkot, Agartala, Chennai and Indore. To promote these LHP sites as live laboratories for transfer of technology to the field, the ministry has initiated an online enrolment drive for technograhis to encourage large scale citizen participation and create technical awareness, on-site learning, find ideas for solutions, experimentation and encouraging innovation," it said.

The statement further stated that the secretary spoke about how the mission is promoting women's empowerment by allotting houses in the name of women beneficiaries or joint ownership.

"He categorically asked the states/UTs to comply with the advisory issued by the ministry at every level, primarily ensuring that the woman beneficiary's name is mentioned on the nameplate of their PMAY-U house," said the ministry.

The ministry pointed out that with the vision of ‘Housing for All', the emphasis has been to accelerate construction, completion and delivery of houses across the country and the MoHUA is committed to provide pucca houses to all eligible beneficiaries of urban India by 2022 when the nation celebrates its 75th year of Independence.

"As of now, more than 73 lakh houses have been grounded and nearly 43 lakh have been completed," the statement said.