Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, on Thursday, reviewed the progress of the special fund to revive the stressed housing projects in the country. Under the special window to revive these real estate projects, so far 81 projects with an investment of Rs 8,767 crore have been approved. This will enable completion of nearly 60,000 houses across India.
These projects are spread across a mix of markets, including large cities such as NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, and also Tier 2 locations, including Karnal, Panipat, Lucknow, Surat, Dehradun, Kota, Nagpur, Jaipur, Nashik, Visakhapatnam and Chandigarh.
Officials said among these, investments in 18 projects have been given final clearance and disbursement is at various stages across seven residential projects, while applications from 353 stressed projects are under examination for provision of assistance.
The Modi government, in November last year, had approved the establishment of a 'special window' fund to provide priority debt financing for the completion of stalled housing projects that were in the affordable and middle-income housing sector. The SBICAP Ventures Limited will be the investment manager.
This fund would, in turn, provide relief to developers who require funding to complete a set of unfinished projects and consequently ensure delivery of homes to the home-buyers.
Under this special window, the government acted as the sponsor and with total commitment of Rs 10,000 crore. The fund is seeking matching contributions from banks, LIC and others to generate a total corpus of around Rs 25,000 crore.
During the review meeting, Sitharaman held discussions with ministry officials, senior management team of the State Bank of India, SBI Capital Markets Limited and SBICAPS Ventures Limited (SVL) and insisted that the special window should expedite participation from existing lenders and ensure early completion of stressed projects.
“It was also highlighted that activation of these construction sites by the special window would provide employment opportunities for various skilled and semi-skilled labourers. Additionally, the fund is actively evaluating options to provide relief to 15,000 home buyers in certain long-stalled projects which are pending before the Supreme Court for resolution,” the finance ministry statement said.
