In a recent talk on affordable housing, Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs Narendra Singh Tomar
mentioned about going ahead on rural and urban India's infrastructure needs. The sources say that
the urban population is expected to increase from 377 million in 2011 to about 600 million by 2030.
The minister has made it clear that they look forward not just to the quantitative but also qualitative
development. Affordable housing being one of the main contributors to the recent and upcoming
economic growth is being given the much required attention. Talking about the upcoming affordable
housing units, he said that they are targeting construction of over 50 lakh dwelling units in rural
areas and a similar target for the next financial. This is in addition to what has been built during
2014-16. Talking about the urban areas, in urban areas, he said that they are aiming at sanctioning
of required number of houses by 2019 so that construction could be completed by 2022 as targeted.
The affordable housing projects have been benefitting the larger strata of the population thus giving
high growth hopes to the real estate sector. According to the government’s Credit-Linked Subsidy
Scheme (CLSS), households with income of less than Rs 18 lakh are suitable to go for affordable LIG
and MIG housing units under its interest subsidy scheme. As most of the people belonging to the
low-income background are still struggling to purchase their own house, there is a huge demand for
the affordable housing units. Being the low-cost units, such properties are a new hope for people
aspiring to buy the first house. The frequently held meetings by the government authorities try to
eliminate the challenges that are being faced by the developers and builders while executing such
projects. Also, there is a clear-cut statement by the experts that this segment is going to be the most
established wing in the coming years. The policy makers and the financial institutions have made
ample amount of amendments in order to assist the same PMAY scheme.
“The framework and government’s push is clearly denoting that there is going to be sufficient
growth in the real estate sector which was much needed, we cannot deny the fact that most of the
financial institutions and micro-lenders are every now and then coming forward to contribute to the
affordable housing projects. There has been an appropriate start in this sector suggests the past few
years, the recently enacted laws and regulations assuring transparency are going to ease larger
proportion of people. The perspective of the real estate industry is transforming. The good news is
that the sector has already started experiencing the positive impact of these laws and benefitting
policies ” says Pradeep Aggarwal, Co-founder & Chairman, Signature Global.