‘System error’ Deprives Family Of Roof Over Head In MP Village

Bhopal: A purported software issue in the Prime Minister Awas Yojana (PMAY) has deprived an 80-year-old woman and her family of four, a roof over their head in a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district.

Gaura Bai, a resident of Lohari village under Kukshmi tehsil, is forced to live under a ‘Babool’ tree along with her family as well as domestic animals- a cow and two goats- since the past ten months after she demolished her mud house, allegedly at the behest of some officials, to get a pucca house under the PMAY.

“I demolished my mud house on the advice of some officials to be eligible for allotment of a house under the PMAY scheme in September 2024. We have already braved two seasons, winter and summer, under the tree and are gearing up to face the ongoing monsoon in the similar condition”, the octogenarian woman said on Tuesday.

She had visited the local gram panchayat office and also made representation to the local sarpanch Amar Singh Waskel to get her PMAY house sanctioned but all her efforts have yielded no results so far, Gaura Bai said.

According to the sarpanch, a PMAY house was earlier allotted in the name of Gaura’s son. But her son got separated from the family later. Hence, the elderly woman had made a representation to the panchayat to sanction her a house under the scheme.

She was informed later that she was enlisted in the beneficiaries’ list, the sarpanch said.

However, the system could not process her application due to some technical snag and hence, she was asked to sort out the matter in the collectorate, the sarpanch said.

The Nisarpur janpad panchayat chief executive officer (CEO) Kanchan Waskel said the application could not be processed as the system showed error.

The officials concerned have been asked to fix the problem, he said.