Govt may adopt Indonesian model for affordable housing, hints panel

To meet the Indian dream of providing a home for every family, the country may adopt the model of south-east Asian countries towards providing affordable housing, noted a Government panel.

Emphasising on a major role to be played by the state to provide housing for all, the panel has advocated the model adopted by the Indonesian government. In Indonesia, developers are required to compulsorily build a minimum of three middle class houses and six simple houses per HIG housing unit. “The government may consider adopting a similar approach in India,” the report said. For financing such projects by the state-owned lending entity, Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited (HUDCO), the company could adopt the cross-subsidization model whereby the profits from commercial financing projects can be used to subsidize social housing.

The former finance secretary Ashok Jha-led panel was set up by the housing and poverty alleviation ministry to look into the housing needs of the economically-weaker section, lower income group and middle income group in early 2008.

So far, the housing sector which is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 26 per cent has not been able to keep up with the demand for housing in this sector. The report has also lashed out at private developers and state development authorities, responsible for fulfilling housing needs. “The building industry has failed to professionalize. There is fragmentation with respect to tenure (owned versus rental), between urban and rural areas, between gated communities and those outside. Clearly, this can not be allowed to continue,” the report said.

The public housing solutions by way of a lottery amongst thousands looking for housing and hundreds that are actually built by various state agencies points towards acute shortage. Recently, Delhi Development Authority held a draw for around 5,000 flats in the city in the range of Rs 7 – 77 lakh, for which over 5 lakh people applied.

It has blamed poor planning approach towards housing on the unavailability of statistical data related to housing in India. “Even after six decades of independence we do not know the status of housing developments in cities… though statistics are collected it is rarely aggregated to give us the information we need for planning purposes,” said the report. It has outlined the need for four key data indicators — housing starts, housing completions, size of units and location and number of units per building — for forecasting the growth of a city and its economic potential.

Source: http://www.indianexpress.com