Efforts of the Government towards Affordable Housing

• Government has granted infrastructure status to affordable housing which will enable these projects to avail the associated benefits such as lower borrowing rates, tax concessions and increased flow of foreign and private capital.
• Provision has been made to include rural areas falling within the notified Planning/Development areas, under ambit of PMAY (U). It would leverage availability of additional land at cheaper cost for construction of affordable houses.
• Responding to the demand and supply gap in affordable housing the Government of India launched Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)-Urban in 2015. The larger goal is to fulfil the housing need of homeless urban poor and enable them to own decent pucca houses with basic infrastructure facilities by 2022.

Based on demand assessment at the state level, the nation has the mammoth task of constructing about 12 million houses under EWS/LIG segment of the society in order to achieve the goal of Housing for All

Steps that are going to be effective in spurring the housing and construction activities, providing huge relief to real estate developers. Also, these would attract private and foreign investments in the housing sector, having a positive multiplier effect on GDP and labor market.

• Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, 2016 (RERA)
• Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)
• Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Amendment Act 2016
• Higher tax breaks on home loans
• Goods and Services Tax (GST)
• Land related reforms
• Optimising development control rules
• Rationalising of the stamp duty and registration charges
• Digitalization