Paper presentation by Ambassador during National Housing Conference held in Harare on 13 July, 2016 |
Paper presentation by Ambassador of India during National Housing Conference in Harare on 13 July 2016 on ‘Indian Experiences and Strategies on Housing Delivery’ Hon’ble Minister of Local Government, Public Works & National Housing H.E. Mr. Saviour Kasukuwere, Housing, which is an important sector of the economic growth of India, provides employment to 6.86% of the entire work force. Though housing is considered as a private good, the role of public sector in providing housing especially to the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Low Income Group (LIG) households is very significant. The role of Central Government and the States is important with respect to direct provisioning of housing and creating an enabling environment for the private sector to participate. Since 1950s, housing policies of India have been transformed initially from welfare centric to a well-defined constellation of economic interests. In the same way the role of the government (Centre) has been changed gradually from being a provider to a facilitator. During 1950-60s the central government’s policies called slums a ‘national problem’ and advocated its complete clearance from all the cities. Due to lack of the monetary capacity and the institutional capacity it was modified to improvement of the slums wherever it was feasible in addition to required clearances. During 1970-80s government realized that slum clearance was not going to solve the problem of housing and started focusing on low cost schemes to tackle the problem of slum proliferation. During 1980-90s neoliberal policies started making their ways into India. The National Housing Policy, 1994 evolved from this ideology for a more inclusive economic development by integrating with the global economy. During this period housing policies started restricting government’s role as a provider of housing and more as a facilitator in this sector. With the advent of the millennium, the government had comfortably placed itself in the role of facilitator of housing activities and started looking for ways to promote private partnerships for investments in this sector. This approach is reflected in the National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy (NUHHP) 2007. Taking a departure from previous housing initiatives that focused on slums, the flagship housing programme of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) - Housing for All (Urban) by 2022 focuses on sustainable human settlements to address unmet housing demand of all urban poor including informal housing. i. Mandatory conditions have been made for the States/UTs proposed under the PMAY to be implemented within the Mission period (2022) Taking urbanization as an opportunity rather than a challenge, a citizen-centric approach has been adopted to align with the new Urban Agenda i.e. high quality services and access to all, improvement in economic productivity of cities, and ensuring sustainable urban growth. The principles (four) of the new urban agenda will be based on (i) Holistic and incremental development (Rural-Urban Continuum Co-existence-Inclusiveness Convergence Preserve of Urban Heritage), (ii) Development that meets the 3Es of sustainability: Equity, Economy, Environment, (iii) development based on cooperative federalism and (iv) context driven innovation with citizen involvement. Government of India has also taken up a number of reforms for catalysing the housing market especially for affordable housing as well as rental housing. These include 2. Measures have been undertaken to support the policy framework and legislation in the housing sector and initiatives for Improving Investment and Financial support to housing are: Demand and Supply side support, External commercial borrowing (ECB), Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Public Private Partnership (PPP), Real Estate Investment Trust, (REIT), National Infrastructure and Investment Funds (NIIF) for Housing, Infrastructure Status etc. i. Fiscal concessions
In the backdrop of the recent transformative changes in the urban development sector especially housing and real estate sector, lessons learnt from implementation of the NUHHP (2007), new programmes/schemes launched by the government, the SDGs and the new Urban Development Agenda, Ministry of HUPA has decided to review/revise the existing NUHHP-2007 and initiated the process of dialogue with various stakeholders for formulation of NUHHP, 2017. |
Embassy of India, Harare, Zimbabwe |