question_answer

Direction: Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

Providing adequate numbers of affordable houses for the urban poor remains an elusive target. Policies framed in the past have failed to deliver. About 96 percent of the 18.78 million housing units shortage pertains to lower income groups. Hence, when the Minis-try of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation recently published its task force report on promoting affordable housing, it raised a familiar question: whether the new recommendations would succeed where previous policies failed. Would it bring elusive homes within the reach of the urban poor? The answer is not a convincing yes. The report has many useful suggestions on the financial aspects, but it inadequately addresses supply issues. It rightly points out that many existing schemes have barriers that prevent the poor from benefiting. For instance, the Affordable_ Housing in Partnership Scheme, launched four years ago to produce one million houses, has so far delivered only 5776. Though the scheme provides a subsidy of Rs. 50, 000 per dwelling unit, the government spends only Rs. 26, 000. This is due to an unreasonable condition ? that the subsidy no: exceeds 25 per cent of the amount spent on providing services such as water supply. The task force wants the government to fine tune the scheme and increase the subsidy to Rs. 100,000.

The Affordable Housing in Partnership Scheme, which was launched to produce one million houses, has so far delivered only:

A)  50, 000 houses

B)  26, 000 houses

C)  5776 houses     

D)  15670 houses

E)  None of these