The government has done all that it should, and now it is your turn to respond. This is what the Minister for Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation, M. Vendaiah Naidu told the real estate developers at a PHD Chambers-organised conference on 'Real Estate Sector-Post Remonetisation and RERA'. The minister's tone and tenor suggested that government is worried about not being able to realise its goal of Housing for All by 2022.
Though the Ministry of HUPA has so far approved construction of over 16 lakh affordable houses for urban poor with an investment of about Rs. 90,000 crore and central assistance of about Rs. 25,000 crore, Naidu said private developers had not taken up any projects so far.
Naidu said his ministry would soon convene a round table with real estate bodies and representatives of banks, housing financing companies and others concerned to deliberate on the road ahead for promoting affordable housing so that the target would be met.
He also told them that taking up affordable housing projects–a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana—was where the future of the real estate sector lay.
In fact, the sector had received more governmental attention than any other sector, Naidu asserted. He counted more than 20 supporting measures that the government had announced to revive the sector in the last two years, and said the developers had no more excuses to make. Apart from giving affordable housing the status of infrastructure, they had been given several tax concessions and exemptions. The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016, the Benami Properties Act and note withdrawal have enabled a new real estate eco-system that would help revive the sector.
