NHB disburses over Rs 30,000 crore in interest subsidy under PMAY

The National Housing Bank said it has disbursed over Rs 30,000 crore so far in interest subsidy to affordable home loan borrowers under PMAY since the launch of the scheme in June 2016

The National Housing Bank said it has disbursed over Rs 30,000 crore so far in interest subsidy to affordable home loan borrowers under the Prime Minister Housing Scheme (PMAY) since the launch of the scheme in June 2016.

The PMAY offers up to 3 percentage points in interest subsidy on low-cost housing loans (at 6.5 per cent) but caps the one-time subsidy at Rs 2.35 lakh per eligible borrower. It was effective from June 2016 and was launched as part of the national housing mission that seeks to ensure a roof over every household by 2030.

The National Housing Bank, Hudco and State Bank of India are the central nodal agencies to channelise this subsidy to the lending institutions and for monitoring the progress.

As part of the government scheme, we have paid back over Rs 30,000 crore in subsidy to eligible affordable home loan borrowers in the past five years, Rahul Bhave, an executive director with the NHB told an event organised online.

As part of its bid to drive the housing for all mission, the NHB is also encouraging preplay home loan lenders to go in for co-lending or co-origination with the large banks, he said without offering details.

While Hudco and SBI could not be reached for comments, the home loan market leader HDFC told PTI that it has paid back Rs 5,211 crore in such subsidies to its borrowers in FY21.

Banks and housing loan companies if worked together through co-lending or co-origination of loans it can deepen the market. We have take some steps towards encouraging this already and more enabling measures will be taken going forward, he said.

The NHB is also looking at developing a secondary market for housing loans, through the securitisation route help bring in more liquidity to both investors as well as lenders, he said.

Underlining the need for better and uniform valuation in the realty market in general and the housing market in particular he said the lack of it which is more often the case, is a major reason for the crisis in the sector.

Addressing the same event, MS Sahoo, the chairman of the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Board of India, also underlined the need for better and uniform valuation in the credit market and said also warned against the over-dependence of lenders on the technology to arrive at valuation.