House for Each Family by 2022 – Modi Government’s Target

On its 75th Independence Day every Indian should have a house for their family by 2022 – A dream of Modi government for its countrymen. But how feasible it is for this new government  to meets its ambitious housing target? That time will only tell. To accomplish this dream government had already set initiatives of 20 millions and 45 millions houses for  urban and rural India respectively  in place even before it took charge.

As per the housing experts,  it is indeed  possible to make “Mission Housing” a reality but the Government needs to do proper planning such as setting the housing policy framework in a correct manner for active participation from private, public, community and individual sectors, removing all the road hurdles in between, providing fiscal incentives and support mechanisms. State government should also equally take interest and be on the same page as central government.

Not only that, we also need good access to all the resources required for turning this mission into reality such as – building materials, land and technologies at reasonable costs, user friendly finance and supportive infrastructure. That will ensures hassle free resources, well planned time framework and brings everybody From consumers, to builder, to urban development agencies and the Central and State policy makers and infrastructure supporting agencies to work together as partners for achieving a common goal.

You must be thinking why is housing a right place to start the economic reconstruction? Well, the answer lies here –

• It is being estimated that with this Housing and Infrastructure planning at all-India level (urban and rural), GDP contribution  will jump up straight from 7 to 12 per cent.

• Several manufacturing and production units including more than 250 industries will start functioning and hence, will start contributing to employment generation for millions of people.

Let take a look at highlights of the action plan by the government in order to fulfil the dream of “Housing for All”:

• Resource inputs: Land as a resource, especially in urban areas for social, efficient and optimum use of land. To cope with the doubling of the urban population the urban land footprint also needs to grow from the current 4 per cent to 7-8 per cent and use land in an efficient and optimum manner by creating land assembly with infrastructure.

• Fast track approvals: Building rules and regulation for governing housing and bring it to the level of  the NBC with incremental housing.

• To create affordable housing,  building construction cost should be brought down which is otherwise growing at the rate of 50 percent more than  the inflation.

• Affordable housing finance.

• Improvement in Basic Infrastructure e.g. water supply, 100 per cent sanitation with proper disposal system, potable water for all, energy and connectivity of roads.

• Improvement in social infrastructure such as health, education, recreation and culture.

• Building materials and technologies.