The 1 lakh houses given away to women under the flagship Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana (rural) scheme in Gujarat’s Valsad district is a Rakshabandhan gift, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday.

At an event in Jujwa village, PM Modi spoke through video conference to women across 26 districts who are beneficiaries of these houses.

The prime minister addressed a public gathering at Jujwa village in Gujarat’s Valsad town after witnessing the collective ‘e-gruha pravesh’ (online house warming) of the beneficiaries of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin).

Over 1.15 lakh residential units have been built at a cost of Rs 1,727 crore.

“I got an opportunity to talk to women across the state today who got their homes under the PM Awas Yojana. It’s a Rakshabandhan gift to my sisters in Gujarat,” PM Modi said at the public meeting.

“Providing over 1 lakh houses to them before the occasion of Rakshabandhan is really a satisfying moment for me,” he added.

He said the houses were “wonderful” because no middlemen were involved.

PM Modi added that he dreams of every family owning a house by 2022 when the nation will celebrate 75 years of independence, and asserted that no bribes have to be paid to avail benefits of the Centre’s housing scheme.

“It is my dream, it is our endeavour to ensure that every Indian has his own house by 2022. Till now we only heard politicians getting their own homes. Now, we are hearing about the poor getting their own homes,” he said.

In an apparent jibe at former (Congress) Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who had once claimed that if the Centre released Re 1, only 15 paise reached the poor, Modi said in his government “if Re 1 goes from Delhi, the entire 100 paise reach the house of the poor”.

More than 1 lakh houses have been built in the state under the Centre’s flagship scheme which envisions housing for all.

“While talking to women beneficiaries of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, I was watching the houses behind them. Even you would be wondering how such good quality houses were built under the scheme,” Modi said after interacting with some of the beneficiaries in various districts of Gujarat through video conferencing.

“This was made possible because there is no place for the system of paying commission in my government. If one rupee goes from Delhi, the entire 100 paise reach the house of the poor,” he said.

Modi said his government had the “guts”, and when the entire country was watching and the media was present, he could ask the women beneficiaries if they had to pay any bribe or commission to get the houses.

“In reply, the mothers and sisters could say with satisfaction that they got the houses according to rules and they did not have to pay a single rupee bribe,” he said.

The prime minister arrived in Gujarat on Thursday morning on a day’s visit and headed to Valsad.

He would later go to Junagadh town in Saurashtra to inaugurate various projects, including a newly-built hospital of the Gujarat Medical and Education Research Society and two fisheries colleges at Veraval town in the Gir Somnath district.

PM Modi would also address a public meeting at the Police Training College ground near Junagadh.

Later, he will preside over the convocation ceremony of the Gujarat Forensic Science University in Gandhinagar and before leaving for Delhi, he will attend the meeting of the Somnath Temple Trust in the evening at the Raj Bhavan there.

(With agency inputs)