new delhi the centre on thursday announced the launch of a scheme to provide homes to migrant laboururban poor at affordable rent and extended the interest subsidy scheme for middleincome families till march 2021 to boost housing demandthe extension of the clss credit linked subsidy scheme will benefit 25 lakh middleincome families during this fiscal year and will lead to an investment of over rs 70000 crore in the housing sector besides job creationannouncing the decisions finance minister nirmala sitharaman said the government will launch a new scheme under the pradhan mantri awas yojana pmay for migrant laboururban poor to provide ease of living at an affordable rent migrant labour and urban poor face challenges in getting houses at affordable rent she saidunder the scheme governmentfunded housing in the cities will be converted into affordable rental housing complexes arhcs under the ppp mode through concessionairesthe new scheme will incentivise manufacturing units industries institutions associations to develop such complexes on their private land and operate them it will incentivise central and state government agencies to develop arhcsthe ministry of housing and urban affairs will issue detailed guidelines on the initiativethat apart sitharaman announced extension of clss up to march 2021the clss for the middle income group having an annual income of rs 618 lakh was operationalised from may 2017 the scheme was extended till march 2020 and has benefitted 33 lakh families so fargovernment will extend the clss scheme up to march 2021 about 25 lakh middle income families will benefit during 202021 the finance minister saidthis will lead to an investment of over rs 70000 crore in the housing sector and create jobsthis will also help stimulate demand for steel cement transportation and other construction materials sitharaman saidunder this scheme a home buyer can avail interest subsidy of up to rs 27 lakh the scheme is run by the national housing bank nhb and housing finance companies hfcsthe clss under pmay makes the home loan affordable as the subsidy provided on the interest component reduces the outflow of the customer on the home loanthe announcements came a day after the centre said it will send advisories to real estate regulators to extend the completion timeline of projects registered under the rera law by six months by treating the covid19 as an act of godforce majeurethe finance minister also announced free distribution of 5 kg foodgrains and 1 kg chana for next two months to approximately 8 crore migrants who do not have either central or state ration cardsannouncing the second tranche of the economic package she said about rs 3500 crore will be spent towards this initiativebesides the minister said the government will make ration cards portable under the initiative one nation one ration card to allow migrant workers to access their ration across the countrythis will enable migrant beneficiaries to access pds grains from any fair price shop fps in the country about 67 crore beneficiaries in 23 states covering 83 per cent of the pds population will be