Indira Awas Yojana and housing adequacy: an evaluation using propensity score matching

Abstract

Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) was a public housing assistance program of the Government of India with its primary purpose being the provision of housing to the homeless rural poor households. The efficacy of this program has not been rigorously evaluated in the literature and thus this paper is an attempt in that direction. This paper, by using IHDS-II, a nationally representative sample from India, and relying on the quasi-experimental technique of Propensity Score Matching, concludes that the IAY has been moderately successful in meeting its goals in term of housing characteristics such as pucca house, pit toilet, smokeless chulha, hand pump water but, it fails to reach its stated goals in terms of external housing adequacy such as the presence of excrement/human waste and stagnant water in the vicinity of house and the access to village health facility and electrification.