The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) is a flagship initiative of the Government of India that aims to provide affordable housing for all. The PMAY(U) scheme has surpassed the milestone of sanctioning 1 Crore dwelling units out of which 64 lakh homes have already been completed. This phenomenal success over the past 7 years has led to the extension of this mission to 2024. As the mission takes rapid strides towards development, the Government of India recognizes that these homes are going to remain with us over the next 6 decades. This presents the nation with a unique opportunity to build climate-resilient and thermally comfortable homes that avoid the need for cooling/heating and associated energy use. This will not only mitigate the stress on our environment and infrastructure, but also enhance the affordability and liveability of these homes.

The vision of this program is to achieve thermally comfortable, and affordable homes through passive design measures, locally available and low embodied energy material coupled with best available technologies in construction. To meet this vision this program has developed:

Building on strong Indo-German ties, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India and GIZ on behalf Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Germany have joined hands. Under this cooperation, GIZ is providing technical assistance to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Government of India in realizing the opportunity of shaping India's unbuilt housing stock to be responsive and resilient to climate change

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs is the apex authority of Government of India at the national level to formulate policies, sponsor and support programme, coordinate the activities of various Central Ministries, State Governments and other nodal authorities and monitor the programmes concerning all the issues of housing and urban affairs in the country.

For over 60 years, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH has been working jointly with partners in India for sustainable economic, ecological, and social development. The Government of India has launched numerous important initiatives to address the country’s economic, environmental and social challenges, and GIZ is contributing towards this transition.