The new Minister of Housing & Urban Affairs Shri Hardeep Singh Puri has said “ The Urban housing and development challenges are transformative in nature and I intend to give my best to meet the targets under various new urban missions”.

Shri Puri spoke to media after assuming office in Nirman Bhawan here today. Speaking about his priorities, he said “The priorities for urban sector have already been outlined by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi and I would like to work on them”. He further said that the Prime Minister who has the mandate of the people is transformative in several ways and the new ministers would like to draw upon their strengths to achieve the tasks given by the Prime Minister.

Shri Puri noted that the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs is a hard core development oriented ministry and various new urban missions launched over the last three years have been doing well on ground and ‘’I have no doubt we are on way to accomplishing the tasks in given timelines”.

Responding to a question on how does he look at the challenge of achieving targets under various missions, Shri Puri said “There are two sets of targets viz., some to be achieved by 2019 and some by 2022. If challenges are not met in two years, they can’t be met even in six years. Going by the progress on ground, they can be met”.

The new Minister later held a two hour review of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) and elicited information about various aspects of the target of ensuring decent pucca houses to all the needy urban poor by 2022. He also queried about the expected demand for affordable housing in urban areas besides well performing and not so well performing States and reasons thereof.

Shri Puri will be attending the inauguration of first phase of 8.50 km stretch of Lucknow Metro between Transport Nagar and Charbagh tomorrow.

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