Context: PM to lay Foundation Stone of Light House Projects under GHTC-India on 1st January 2021. PM to also distribute PMAY (Urban) and ASHA-India awards.
About Light House Project

• The Light House Projects (LHPs) showcase the best of new-age alternate global technologies, materials and processes in the construction sector for the first time in the country at such a large scale.
• They are being constructed under GHTC-India which envisages to provide an ecosystem for adoption of innovative technologies in the housing construction sector in a holistic manner.
• The LHPs are being constructed at Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Rajkot (Gujarat), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Agartala (Tripura) and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh).
• They comprise about 1000 houses at each location along with allied infrastructure facilities.
• These projects will demonstrate and deliver ready to live houses at an expedited pace within twelve months, as compared to conventional brick and mortar construction, and will be more economical, sustainable, of high quality and durability.

About ASHA-India

• Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators – India (ASHA-India) aims to promote domestic research and entrepreneurship by providing incubation and acceleration support to potential future technologies.
• Under ASHA-India initiative, five ASHA-India Centers have been set up for providing incubation and acceleration support.
• The technologies, processes and materials identified through this initiative will provide a major fillip to young creative minds, start-ups, innovators and entrepreneurs.

About PMAY-U Mission

• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Urban (PMAY-U) Mission has been designed to achieve the vision of “Housing For All by 2022”.
• In order to recognize the outstanding contribution by States, UTs, Urban Local Bodies and beneficiaries, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has introduced annual awards for excellence in implementation of PMAY-Urban.

The Mission seeks to address the housing requirement of urban poor including slum dwellers through following programme verticals such as;-

• Slum rehabilitation of Slum Dwellers with participation of private developers using land as a resource,
• Promotion of Affordable Housing for weaker section through credit linked subsidy.
• Affordable Housing in Partnership with Public & Private sectors.
• Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction /enhancement.
• The beneficiaries are poor and people living under Economically Weaker Section (EWS) and Light Income Group(LIG) categories in the country.
• The scheme is divided into three phases, in the first phase, a total of 100 cities will be covered from April 2015 to March 2017. in phase two, 200 cities will be covered from April 2017 to March 2019 and in the third phase, the leftover cities will be covered from April 2019 to March 2022.