Government to give incentives to build rental housing complexes

Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday said that the central government will provide incentives and benefits including concessional project finance under affordable housing fund & priority sector lending, an exemption in Income Tax and GST for building Affordable Rental Housing Complexes(ARHCs) for urban migrants and poor.

The Minister was speaking after launching a portal for the ARHC scheme and released the guidelines and guidebook.

“To make this a lucrative and viable business opportunity for entities, the Central government will provide concessional project finance under affordable housing fund & priority sector lending, an exemption in Income Tax and GST and Technology Innovation Grant for promotion of innovative technologies in ARHCs. Further, State/UT Govt. will provide Use Permission changes, 50% additional FAR/FSI free of cost, Single Window Approval within 30 days, Trunk Infrastructure facility and Municipal charges at par with residential property," a statement by the ministry said.

"Total 24 states agreed to implement the scheme. For other states and union territories, I am personally writing them requesting to join the scheme, "Puri said while addressing a digital press conference.

The Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry announced the ARHC scheme in May and got cabinet nod in July.

The ARHC under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana ( Urban) aimed at providing budgeted rental accommodation to urban migrants and poor including industrial & construction workers, migrants working with market associations, employees of different sectors and students who always facing difficulties in getting accommodation.

As per the scheme, existing vacant government-funded housing complexes across key cities will be converted into ARHCs, and offered to concessionaires for 25 years to rent out the units to urban poor and migrant workers. Another model, roping private or public entities and allowing them to build housing complexes in their own land in cities.

The state and civic bodies have to select private developers through bidding to build housing complexes.

Already three developers shown interest to build ARHCs in Bengaluru, Jaipur, Vadodara and Bahadurgarh, Puri said.