What was the key announcement made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman regarding affordable housing?

Providing a boost to affordable housing, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government would launch a scheme to help “deserving sections of the middle class living in rented houses or slums or chawls and unauthorised colonies” buy or build houses. Two crore more houses would be built under the flagship Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)-Rural. The PMAY has two components — PMAY (Urban) for the urban poor under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, and PMAY (Rural) for rural India under the Ministry of Rural Development. The allocation for the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry for 2024-25 is ₹77,523 crore, up from ₹76,431 crore in 2023-24. The total allocation for PMAY is ₹80,671 crore, of which ₹54,500 crore is for PMAY (Rural).