Urban housing shortage in India lessened by 25%

In India, urban housing shortage has plunged from 24.7 million at the beginning of the 11th Five Year Plan in 2007 to 18.78 million for the next five year plan from 2012 to 2017, informed Minister of housing and urban poverty alleviation Kumari Selja. The housing shortage has been estimated by putting together (a) the number of households residing in unacceptable dwelling units – computed by considering the obsolescence factor, (b) those residing in unacceptable physical and social conditions -worked out using overcrowding/congestion factor, and (c) the houseless households.
The technical committee under the Chairmanship of Dr. Amitabh Kundu, Professor of Economics in JNU revealed that the major reason of the housing shortage to be congested homes where a couple or a person above 10 years of age did not have their own room. Such homes accounted for almost 15 million homes, is 80% of the total shortages of 18.78 million.
The report recognises that eliminating housing shortage during the period of the 12th Five Year Plan, over and above maintaining the current rate of construction, will be a challenging task, even with full involvement and cooperation of private sector and builder’s lobby. In an order to meet this challenge through alternate and complementary strategies; the report proposes housing to be made a part of infrastructure sector or declared to be an industry, so that it is possible to incentivise the construction activities to deliver an appropriate mix of dwelling units to meet the needs of the people in housing poverty.
The report also suggests: Bring in the vacant houses into the housing market through taxation and incentive policies; Households that have the problem of congestion must be enabled to create extra space or build extra rooms through support from public agencies; and Shifting the households living in houses built before 80 years to new units.

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