Three small letters — YSR — added to the Union government’s flagship rural housing scheme, thus rebranding it to the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-YSR, are proving costly for Andhra Pradesh.
According to sources, the State’s decision to add the ruling YSR Congress’ initials to the scheme’s name has resulted in the Union Finance Ministry putting a temporary hold on ₹4,000 crore that the State should get under a scheme for “special assistance to state for capital investment”, apart from pending PMAY-Gramin funds worth ₹1,300 crore. In fact, the funds have still not been released despite the State government agreeing to remove its branding and logo from the scheme.
For an identical violation in West Bengal, where the State government rebranded the scheme as the Bangla Awas Yojana, Central funds have not been released since 2022. This financial year too, funds were not released to West Bengal, due to the “non-submission of satisfactory compliance of the directives of the ministry.”
