Letters: Causing confusion

With reference to Krishna Kant's report, "Developers' unsold inventory touches a 10-year high" (September 4), it is sad that developers have focused their attention on constructing houses for the upper and the middle classes while doing next to nothing for the poor.

The Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana was launched in June 2015 to provide affordable housing to the urban poor. This scheme proposed to build 20 million houses for the urban poor by 2022, including for the economically weaker sections and low income groups, through a financial assistance of $30 billion from the central government. This mission has four components viz, in-situ slum redevelopment with private sector participation using land as a resource, affordable housing through credit-linked subsidy, affordable housing in partnership with the private and public sectors and beneficiary-led house construction or enhancement.

The government has approved an investment of $6.5 billion for the construction of 683,724 houses for the urban poor, which includes a central assistance commitment of $1.5 billion by April 2016.

The inventory has not taken into account the break-up of houses constructed for the poor. The selling price has been fixed around ~5,000 per square feet. None of the poor can afford a house tagged with this price. Income is the prime factor, not price and availability.

It has been assessed that there is a shortage of 27 million houses for 75 million households. Unsold inventory, the result of defective planning, is causing confusion.

Sushil Bakliwal, Jaipur

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