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A technical group set up by the Housing Ministry to estimate the urban housing shortage at the start of the 12th Plan Year has pegged the number at 18.87 million. It was 24.7 million at the beginning of the 11th Plan.
Bank funding, rise in per capita income and programmes of the Centre and States have been credited for the decline in the numbers.
The committee, under the chairmanship of Amitabh Kundu, Professor of Economics, JNU, submitted its final report to the Ministry last Saturday.
The report categorised the shortage as households living in non-serviceable katcha homes at 0.99 million, those in obsolescent houses at 2.27 million, people living in congested homes requiring new houses at 14.99 million, and those in homeless condition at 0.53 million.
The report said that the maximum shortage exists for the economically weaker section/lower income group whose need was unable to get translated into demand due to affordability issues.
The report recognised that eliminating housing shortage in the 12{+t}{+h} Plan, over and above maintaining the current rate of construction, would be a challenging task, even with the total involvement and cooperation of the private sector.
Alternative Strategy
Therefore, the committee suggested alternative and complementary strategies such as housing to be made a part of the infrastructure sector or be declared an industry. This is to boost construction activity , it said.
Second, the committee wanted to bring in vacant houses into the housing market through taxation and policy incentives.
For households with congestion, it said they must be enabled to create extra space or build extra rooms through support from public agencies.
The committee also recommended shifting to new units people living in houses built more than 80 years ago.
The report also noted the rapid increase in vacant houses, fierce competition among private builders and aggressive advertisements to woo prospective buyers. Almost all buyers of new housing stock already live in acceptable dwelling units and either plan to shift from rented to self-owned houses or are only attempting to improve their living conditions by going to a bigger house.
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