Centre to build 1 million houses in a year

Possibly with an eye on the forthcoming general elections, the Centre has set an ambitious target of constructing over one million houses for the urban poor under various centrally sponsored schemes in the next one year.

Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Girija Vyas, who inaugurated a workshop on national symposium on affordable housing scheme here, told reporters on Monday that two million houses would be built in the next four years out of which one million would be built in the next one year.

To expedite the process of building those houses and reaching more beneficiaries, the Minister also said that some of the existing schemes will be modified soon to make them more people-friendly including Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), and Rajiv Rinn Yojana. 

She also said that her ministry has proposed to liberalise norms for affordable housing, and families with income of Rs 1 lakh per year would be eligible for housing under the economically weaker section (EWS) category.

She said families in the income level of Rs 2 lakh per year would be eligible for lower income group (LIG) housing.

Requesting private developers to join hands with the government to construct more number of houses for the poor, the Minister claimed Rs 35,000 crore was available with her ministry for the purpose.The Housing Ministry would also write to the Finance Ministry seeking infrastructure status to the housing sector which would qualify buildings for benefits such as tax exemption. The earlier task force headed by the secretary of Housing Ministry A K Mishra recommended that the sector should be granted infrastructure status.

The Minister assured that the task force’s suggestions, whose recommendations included bringing down timelines for affordable housing projects and preparation of an inventory of land holdings by states and cities, increase floor space index and provide transferable development rights facilities. She said that the housing shortage in the country had been estimated at 18.78 million units, of which 96 percent shortage was in the EWS and LIG category.