Paper calls for fast-track housing development

Nearly 4 million houses have already been sanctioned under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), a Prime Minister housing scheme to build 12-million houses by 2022.

Stating this, Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Puri said it was “incorrect on the part of industry to assume” that just because land was costly and a state subject, it had to be necessarily acquired in places far away from slum areas.

He was speaking at the Conference on ‘Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana – Housing for All by 2022’, organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in association with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on 16 Mar 2018.

It was important, he said, to remember that In-situ Slum Redevelopment, one of the components of the PMAY (Urban), is especially meant for making cities/towns slum free.

It is for providing pucca houses to the beneficiaries with basic civic infrastructure such as water, sanitation, sewerage, road and electricity.

Therefore, slums had to be re-developed on ‘as is where is’ basis, he pointed out.

It was no longer possible to lift people and relocate them 40-50 km away from their existing location, he added.

Puri said that urban planning in India has suffered from criminal neglect for 67 years.

The distortions in the urban space happened because of manipulations by vested interests, he believes.

This was due to the absence of a regulator to check the brazen acts of developers who got unsuspecting buyers to sign agreements that were one-sided, took their money and invested in land banks.

The government has initiated rectification by bringing in Real Estate Regulation Development Act (RERA), but some state governments which adopted RERA have placed on-going projects outside its fold, he observed.

The Minister, however, expressed optimism that ultimately the resilience of the people would prevail and market distortions will correct themselves as demand picks up.

The need is to get the first project right in order to remove the trust deficit amongst the beneficiaries and develop a model that can be replicated, he said.

He pointed out that the Awas Yojana “was not just succeeding, it was roaring” and therein lies an opportunity for the private sector.

Also, the Minister released a FICCI-CBRE White Paper on ‘Affordable Housing: The Next Big Thing?’.

The FICCI-CBRE White Paper brings to light ways to facts to bridge the housing gap in India and key inhibitors of private sector participation in affordable housing segment.

It provides a broad understanding of basic components of the Affordable Housing Scheme along with the policy level interventions by the Government of India to foster the public private participation in the sector.

The paper recommends that to fast-track the pace of affordable housing development, it was imperative that isolated interventions be replaced with a well-synergised approach to address the concerns of all stakeholders in the value chain.

It notes that while there has been an uptick in activity in the affordable housing segment, there are still some measures that the segment needs in order to be completely viable for private participation.

Availability of land, relaxation in development norms, faster approvals for affordable housing projects, clear definition of affordable housing and better alignment between central and state policies are some of the factors that need to be addressed to allow the segment to achieve its full potential. fii-news.com