New Delhi, June 10 (IANS): The first Cabinet meeting of the new NDA government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday approved a proposal to provide assistance to 3 crore additional rural and urban households for construction of houses.

The decision has been taken to meet the housing requirements arising out of the increase in the number of eligible families under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).

The PM Modi-led government has been implementing the PMAY scheme since 2015-16 to provide assistance to eligible rural and urban households for the construction of houses with basic amenities.

Under PMAY, a total of 4.21 crore houses have been completed for the poor families eligible under the housing scheme since 2015-16.

All the houses constructed under PMAY are also provided with basic amenities such as toilets, LPG connection, electricity connection, functional household water connection, etc., through convergence with other schemes of the Central government and state governments.

Prime Minister Modi, who took oath as the head of a coalition government, held the first Cabinet meeting of the new regime at his residence in Delhi on Monday.

On the agenda was advising the President to formulate the 18th Lok Sabha, among others.

On Monday morning, PM Modi signed his first file to authorise the release of Rs 20,000 crore as the 17th instalment of the PM Kisan Nidhi scheme to benefit 9.3 crore farmers.

After signing the file, PM Modi said, “Ours is a government fully committed to Kisan Kalyan. It is therefore fitting that the first file signed on taking charge is related to farmer welfare. We want to keep working even more for the farmers and the agriculture sector in the times to come.”