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The National Housing Bank (NHB) has surpassed its disbursement target of ₹20,000 crore envisaged for the current year, Sriram Kalyanaraman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, said.
Stating that the bank has done well both on the rural and urban housing fronts, he said, “On rural housing, we have, from conception to date, done about 15 lakh houses. Our primary goal is to promote housing for all.” The bank, which is the nodal agency for implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, had disbursed about ₹120 crore last year and is looking to double it this year (June 2016 – July 2017).
The NHB chief, who assumed charge about a year ago, told BusinessLine that the bank has completely automated its processes, which to a large extent helped achieve its targets.
About 32 per cent of public sector banks’ new loans and 33 per cent of housing finance companies’ loans last year were for amounts below ₹10 lakh, signalling enough off-take and progress on the schemes.
Notwithstanding such government schemes, the Centre also plans to develop housing under the public-private partnership (PPP) model, and NHB is working towards developing a healthy, profitable and sustainable eco system.
“Some of the new HFCs (housing finance companies) that are focussed on the low-end housing segment have taken underwriting norms to a new level. They profile the customer based on their segment, their geography, and so on, even if such people did not have a credit track record and give them a loan,” he explained and pointed out that in the past, it never used to be easy to get credit if one did not have a credit history.
Keeping in mind the health of the industry, NHB has promoted a private company — India Mortgage Credit Guarantee Company — for providing guarantee cover for both low-end and high-end housing.
The bank is also working with a couple of multilateral agencies to get funding for green and affordable housing. “This should work out very soon,” the NHB MD said.
To a query on the inventory pile-up, he said, “There is no stagnation in the sub-₹20 lakh housing market provided the buyer is assured of quality, transparency and timely delivery.” A mobile app is being examined, he said. “But there are lot of challenges. We are at it though, trying to move all the processes online (end-to-end). It would be rolled out over time.”
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