Readings on Housing PMAY-U Guidelines from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs / Annotated by Swastik Harish

Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana - Urban (PMAY-U) Scheme Guidelines 2021

Context of the document

This is a Scheme Guideline, as compared to:

• an Act, which is a law enforceable by the courts; and is often accompanied by Rules, that define its procedures
• a Policy, which is not enforceable but is rather an intentional statement; it usually comes with an implementation framework and sometimes with a broad budgetary statement, or
• a Project report, that lays out the exact scope and technical and financial parameters of a particular intervention; it will often be called a Detailed Project Report or DPR.

So, this is somewhere between a policy and a project report. A Scheme (also called a Program) is, at its core, a pot of money or some such resource. Typically, schemes and programs are conceived as operational commitments to a particular policy. Within schemes, there are projects. So, an easy way to visualize this quickly is:

[Act/law] > Policy > Program > Project

In this case, as an example, the  policy is 'Housing for All', the program/scheme is the  Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) or PMAY-U and, within this scheme's guidelines (this document), you will see processes defined for proponents to propose projects through DPRs. 

An approach to reading this document

In the following sections, through annotations, I will describe the document through three lenses:

1. The tonality of the document: relating to the kind of audiences expected to read this, the positionality of the authors, including assumed or expected power relations between them, etc.;
2. The meanings that can be gleaned from the document: relating to government categories and 'types', the phrases and terms used, and their position on the spectrum between tacit and codified messaging, ascertaining where there is depth of argument, and where not and why, etc., and lastly;
3. The effects of the document: relating to impact of the provisions in this document on the procedures and institutions along the chain of governance, the questions it raises on upstream and downstream capacities and working relationships, including issues of trust, corruption and wastage.

I will also critique the document, its objectives, approach and methods, the document's statements of context, problematization and its framing of the 'solution space', with a focus on conceptual and operational gaps within, and its surprises and contradictions. The critiques will be somewhat thematic in nature (urban housing in this case), but I hope they will serve to enrich the understanding of the document as seen through the three lenses as described above.