Govt to continue providing decent houses to the poor: Marak

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaMarch 11, 2025

Minister in-charge Housing Marcuise N Marak on Tuesday said his department would continue with its service to provide decent houses and be an instrument to help uplift the lives and dignity of the poor.  

Replying to a short duration discussion on a matter relating to the Chief Minister’s Housing Assistance Programme (CMHAP), Marak said that the department is at the moment trying its level best to understand the obstacles and to bring out better ways to implement new ideas to improve its functioning.

“The department is preparing itself and are open to new ideas with better methods to accomplish its goals, also keeping in mind the interest of the poor and needy of the state to continue with its service to provide decent houses and be an instrument to help uplift the lives and dignity of the poor,” he said adding “With changing times, the department is also geared to adapt to an environment where development is in sync with the demands of the day like sustainability, viability and environmentally friendly approach for the benefit of the citizens. I am hopeful that these pursuits through Housing Department will benefit our people in both rural and urban areas.”

The minister also recalled that the department had earlier implemented the Rural Housing Scheme (RHS) in which three bundles of corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) sheets were given as grant-in-aid to those who were able to construct their own house up to the roof level with their own resources.

A total of 71, 632 beneficiaries had benefited from RHS earlier.

However, he said that the impact of the scheme was not satisfactory as only few numbers of applicants were allotted per district which is not justifiable to those who had to wait for years to get help through this scheme and it was felt necessary to be more accommodating keeping in mind the growing number of new families and of demand received.

“And so, the government decided to discontinue the scheme and in its place, the Chief Minister’s Housing Assistance Programme (CMHAP) was introduced to replace the RHS. CMHAP was introduced in the year 2017 and implemented from the year 2017-18 onwards. The scheme covers both rural and urban areas of the state through C&RD blocks and urban/municipality areas respectively,”Marak informed.

The objectives of the CMHAP are to provide durable roofing materials to improve their existing houses to the economically weaker section (EWS) by providing three bundles of roofing materials to the selected beneficiaries and to provide dwelling houses to the low-income group (LIG) families living in the state by granting financial assistance Rs 75000 to each family, he added.

The minister further informed that currently, the department is providing only the first component that is providing aluminium roofing sheets to the economically weaker section (EWS) beneficiaries based on the target in each C&RD Block  and Urban/Municipality area.

Currently, he said that the second component of the scheme is not being implemented. However, financial assistance of Rs 75000 was provided for dwelling house to the LIG families for 130 beneficiaries under South West Garo Hills district during 2017-18 (100 for Betasing C&RD block and 30 for Damalgre C&RD block).