Despite the
availability of funds and finances, affordable housing in India is suffering
from supply constraints, Mr. R.V. Verma, Chairman and Managing Director
(CMD), National Housing Bank (NHB), has said.
Affordable Homes
Price..!
Unofficially, houses
priced between Rs. 5 lakh and Rs. 12 lakh are called “affordable housing”.
These are categorised into LIG (lower income group) and EWS (economically
weaker section) houses.
According to Mr. R.V.
Verma, developers’ focus has primarily been on the middle income and high
income group homes. As a result, while housing finance companies were ready to
help low income households, supply of such homes is restricted.
“I believe that they
(developers / builders ) have not build the right business model yet. That
needs to be done as soon as possible,” Mr. Verma said while speaking at Bengal
Leads, a 3 day conference on urban infrastructure, organised jointly by the
CREDAI (Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Association of India) and the
West Bengal Government.
According to Mr.
Verma, urban housing shortage is estimated at about 1.8 crore flats (with 95%
in LIG & EWS categories). Despite the builder / promoters community being
well geared to cater to the needs of affordable housing, they fail to do so
because of lack of confidence with the policy makers. He said developers’ hoping
for a scaling down in interest rates was “unrealistic” & instead, they should opt for interest subsidy
schemes of the Centre and state govt.
The loans will help
low-income households by way of credit to HFCs on the condition that it is used
only to build houses. NHB, the apex bank for regulating and supervising housing
finance companies, will raise nearly Rs 6,500 crore by the end of June next
year.
The amount will be raised through tax free bonds and rural housing funds,
Verma said. It has already raised Rs 8,000 crore so far this fiscal. NHB
follows the July-June accounting year.
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