Shri Naidu says affordable housing needs easy land acquisition

New Delhi, June 11, 2015: Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu has said that the Housing for All initiative to be launched soon seeks to address the shortcomings of the earlier housing schemes and is more workable. He sought to address the concerns voiced by the Members of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee of the Ministries of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation at its meeting. The Members of Parliament discussed extensively various implementation issues relating to construction of 2 crore houses for the urban poor by the year 2022.

In his opening remarks Shri Naidu informed the members that an investment of about Rs.3 lakh crore is required to meet the housing shortage in urban areas and the new Housing for All scheme has been formulated to create an enabling environment based on the experiences of implementation of earlier housing schemes. He informed the MPs that the urban component of Housing Mission has four components viz., Slum Redevelopment, Affordable Housing through Credit Linked Subsidy, Affordable Housing in Partnership (with private or public sector agencies) and Subsidy for Beneficiary-led individual house construction/enhancement.

Acknowledging that the task of building 2 crore new houses in urban areas is a challenging task, Shri Naidu informed the MPs that several measures have been taken to enable mobilization of required resources by the States and Urban Local Bodies. These include leveraging the land for slum redevelopment, liberalizing norms for FDI flows in construction and housing sector, streamlining clearences for construction projects, substantial assistance to the beneficiaries belonging to Economically Weaker Sections and Low Income Groups, enabling urban local bodies to issue municipal bonds etc.

Shri Venkaiah Naidu said that affordable housing in rural and urban areas needs land acquisition and this was one of the objectives of amendments proposed by the Central Government to the Land Acquisition Act of 2013.

During the discussion, the Members of Parliament expressed concern over the steadily declining housing loans to weaker sections from Public Sector Banks and Housing Finance Corporations even as total lending to housing sector has increased over the years. They strongly felt that granting ‘infrastructure status’ to housing sector would help in meeting the credit needs. MPs also referred to the availability of land, selection of beneficiaries, granting clearences to construction projects as major challenges which need to be effectively addressed by the States and Urban Local Bodies.

Members of the Consultative Committee also urged the Central Government to continue to support the housing projects sanctioned under earlier housing schemes and remained incomplete. Shri Venkaiah Naidu informed the MPs that it has already been decided to support the housing projects sanctioned under JNNURM till March, 2017 and the incomplete projects of Rajiv Awas Yojana have been subsumed in the Housing for All scheme.

Shri Venkaiah Naidu said that Members of Parliament would be effectively associated with the implementation of the Housing Mission and their suggestions and proposals would be given due consideration.

Ms. Nandita Chatterjee, Secretary(Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation) made a detailed presentation on various aspects of the Housing Mission.

The Consultative Committee meeting was attended by Shri Babul Supriyo, Minister of State for Urban Development and HUPA, Shri Motilal Vora, Shri Bhartruhari Mahtab, Shri Satyanarayan Jatia, Shri Raghav Lakhanpal, Dr.Kirit Somaiya, Shri Prahlad Joshi, Shri Rattan Lal Katharia, Shri Santok Singh Chaudhary, Shri Rajan Baburao Vichare, Shri K.R.P Prabhakaran and Shri Shrikant Eknath Shinde.