Making another bid to sell the vexed land acquisition bill, housing and urban poverty alleviation minister Venkaiah Naidu told the MPs of his ministry’s consultative committee that  land act will help in acquiring land for affordable housing in both rural and urban areas.

He told the MPs that an investment of about Rs 3 lakh crore is required to meet the housing shortage in urban areas and the amendments proposed by the central government in Land Acquisition Act of 2013 will actually help in acquiring land to realize the dream of affordable housing for people. The current housing shortage is 6 crore units.

India has seen a shortage of affordable housing in the past few years. Despite a lot of demand for affordable housing, developers have not been able to deliver. It is very difficult to get commercial returns on affordable housing which is why unless there is some of intervention from the government viz, providing land for cheap, the shortage will only go up.

The current average asking price for affordable housing is Rs 50 lakh and above. The question is affordable for whom? It is quite plainly out of reach for a large section of the middle class.

Sand and brick have become expensive commodities. In absence of innovation, the price of real estate will only go up.

The biggest problem of rental accommodation is lack of knowledge about where it is available and whether the buyer can access it in the bracket in which he can afford. Many agents and websites broker still lack transparency as they do not connect you to the flat owner. India has a huge stock of rental housing, which is not being let out because of anxiety. The market is controlled by brokers at present.

The minister informed the consultative committee that several measures have been taken to enable mobilization of required resources by the states and urban local bodies. These include leveraging the land for slum redevelopment, liberalizing norms for FDI flows in construction and housing sector, streamlining clearances for construction projects, substantial assistance to the beneficiaries belonging to Economically Weaker Sections and Low Income Groups, enabling urban local bodies to issue municipal bonds etc.

An investment of about Rs 3 lakh crore is required to meet the housing shortage in urban areas and the new housing for al scheme has been formulated to create an enabling environment based on the experiences of implementation of earlier housing schemes. The urban component of the housing mission has four components -- slum redevelopment, affordable housing through credit linked subsidy, affordable housing in partnership (with private or public sector agencies) and subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction/enhancement.

The centre will support the housing projects sanctioned under JNNURM till March, 2017 and the incomplete projects of Rajiv Awas Yojana have been subsumed in the Housing for All scheme.