Housing scheme failed due to lack of planning: CAG

The Comptroller and Auditor General report on "Social, General and Economic Sectors (Non-Public Sector Undertakings) of Union Territory of Delhi" for the year ended March 2018 noted that the Delhi government's plan to provide affordable housing to the city's poor and rehabilitate those living in slum clusters failed due to a lack of planning from the conceptual stage itself.

One element of the CAG's performance audit of various Delhi government departments was the evaluation of affordable housing projects for urban poor under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission.

The audit showed that despite 461 of the 675 targeted JJ clusters, which were to receive in situ rehabilitation, being in the remaining seven districts, all 14 housing projects conceptualised by Delhi State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (DSIIDC) and Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB) were restricted to only four districts. “Also, instead of small clusters evenly spread all over Delhi, housing projects with a large number of dwelling units were planned,” the report stated.

For economically disadvantaged sections, DSIIDC and DUSIB completed 14 housing projects totaling 52,344 apartments, but four of them, totaling more than 24,000 homes, were still unfinished more than a year after the scheme's closure. “It resulted in expenditure of Rs 755.3 crore remaining infructuous,” stated the report.

The Delhi government has been asked for Rs 2,210 crore by DSIIDC to repair empty apartments and finish those that are still under construction.

The Delhi government's effort to identify beneficiaries who qualified for affordable housing under the programme was criticised by the CAG as well. Only 1,864 of the 5,483 beneficiaries who could be identified by the government, it was claimed, had their housing units renovated as of August 2018.

“Due to the delay in identifying beneficiaries, more than 90% of the 28,344 dwelling units completed till June 2018 at a cost of Rs 1,101.4 crore were lying unallotted, unoccupied and vulnerable to deterioration. The objectives of the scheme remained unfulfilled even after 10 years of its launch and one year of its closure. This was mainly due to deficiency in planning and execution of projects and poor progress in identification of beneficiaries,” CAG stated.