Union Minister for Urban Development, Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Parliamentary Affairs Venkaiah Naidu was in Rajkot to dedicate affordable homes to the public and also for Vikas Parv, celebration of two years of Narendra Modi government.

There seems to be lack of clarity as far as JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) is concerned.

There is no JNNURM. It has ended in 2014.

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Is your govt planning to replace JNNURM in some way?

There is no JNNURM. See urban infrastructure is being taken care of. One is Smart City. Second is AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation). JNNURM was confined to 67 or 70 cities alone, whereas AMRUT covers 500 cities of one lakh population and above. All states have been taken into confidence, money has been released and work is in progress in all 500 cities.

The first priority is water, second is sanitation, third is solid waste management, number four is transport. Then metro rail… we are supporting Ahmedabad metro, we are supporting Lucknow metro, Chennai and Bengaluru, so mass transport is also being taken care of.

In Vadodara, affordable housing projects and its related evictions have seen unrest, some leading to clashes.

That is all local. You cannot rule Vadodara from Delhi. Land is a state subject.

Is that a policy issue?

The state has to decide whom to evict and whom not to evict, how does the Centre decide these things? The Centre formulates a policy — housing for the poor. The three types of affordable housing — LIG, EWS and slum. If you want to remove slums and construct houses there, you can do it. The Centre will not interfere. Rs 1 lakh per unit will be given directly. For group housing, we’ll give Rs 1.5 lakh, and suppose some individual beneficiary wants to construct a house and he has some land, then we’ll give Rs 2.5 lakh upfront in form of interest subvention.

What happened to Rajiv Gandhi Awas Yojna?

It was a total failure. Experience tells it could not take off. So, under Rajiv Gandhi Roon Awas Yojna, whatever houses were constructed or were to be completed, we are funding that. (But scheme has been discontinued) because that will go waste.

Is your ministry thinking of replacing that scheme?

Already there is Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna.

Is your government taking a conscious call on not increasing ghettoisation? Muslims are not being allowed to move into a Hindu neighbourhood in Vadodara.

See Articles 14, 15 and19 (of the Constitution), they have to take care of all these things. Can you make a policy that there should be so many Muslims, so many Christians or this community or that? 

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