Professional Documents
Culture Documents
NPTEL course on
Housing Policy and Planning
Note:
1. This notes have five sections corresponding to five lectures
2. This lecture note is to be referred along with the video lectures for better understanding
In order to cope up with such constraints governments role has been shifted slowly from a provider to
enabler and then enabler to facilitator. The basic intent is to bring and mobilize all other players of
the housing market in a concerted and converged way. It includes the private housing and infrastructure
developers, manufacturers & assembler, NGOs, PSUs etc. However, in this journey, to facilitate others in
a common objective it was inevitable to bring some changes and amendments in functioning of the
government too. To bring this change a set of reforms in terms of legal, process, systems, technology,
delivery etc were mandated at every level through various programmes and schemes. Such reforms are
basically the institutionalized form of new approach and methods of discharging a public service. For
housing sector following major reforms are important to before before we proceed further
2
Weekly Lecture Notes /8
NPTEL course: Housing Policy and Planning
Dr. Uttam K. Roy, IIT Roorkee: January-March 2017 Week 2
Following the open economic policy of government of India post 90s to bring more investors and
business with other countries, 100% funding by any foreign investors was allowed. The basic intent was
to bring more fund inflow in the housing market to enable the existing housing developers in an
competitive way. Many states could get the advantage in bringing such funding for housing and
infrastructure projects. However, the most important critics it received for such funding was that it
attempted mostly the higher income groups in housing delivery.
Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act (ULCRA) is a state act frame in 70s in most of the states to
ensure the equitable distribution of urban. Through this act the bigger land parcels are vested to the
government beyond a certain ceiling (like 500 sqm etc). Government can utilize such vested land for
further development and distribution as the rural land reform in India. However, in spite of achieving
such objective in few cases the Act failed to generate larger chunk of land to ensure greater housing and
infrastructure development.
Reform in Land Acquisition and related act also were attempted to address the streamlining the process of
making available urban land for large infrastructure development. The revised Right to Fair
Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (2013) and
Ordinance (2014) were created to ensure the land acquisition with more transparent and equitable process.
Concept of Real Estate Investment fund/Trust was to create a corpus of fund in order to facilitate the
funding of the real estate projects with the accumulated fund from the prospective investors. This is yet to
institutionalized in India
Interest subsidy for the housing for the poor was very important demand side intervention which came a
reform firs during JNNURM and later is was also continued during PMAY.
Facilitating private developers and joint venture company with more streamlining approval process of
development schemes and more access to government was also very important reform in housing
In India, to satisfy the shelter needs of the underprivileged groups has always been on the national
housing agenda, reflected in the welfare programs mentioned in the Five Year Plans. However, prior to
the 1980s, they were mostly eluded from the programs designed for them due to unorganized nature of the
housing markets, lack of formal finance and a dedicated policy to regulate the events. Post 1980 the
following policy documents were made by the government of India:
NUHHP also explored and encouraged supply of rental housing as an alternative option to ownership, to
reduce the pressure and enhance affordability. Hence, the policy envisioned a multi-pronged multi-
stakeholder approach to provide affordable housing delivery for all.
In order to provide the states a technical guidance for preparation of State Housing Policies,
emphasizing on the affordable housing segment, a Model State Affordable Housing Policy was prepared
and its draft copy was circulated for stakeholders consultation. The aim of MSAHP, prepared in 2015, is
to create an enabling environment for providing affordable housing for all with special emphasis on
EWS and LIG and other vulnerable sections of society such as Scheduled castes/Scheduled Tribes,
Backward Classes, Minorities and senior citizens, physically challenged persons in the State and to ensure
that no individual is left shelter less.
The Policy further aims to promote Public Private People Participation (PPPP) for addressing the
shortage of adequate and affordable housing. The target group for the said policy would be urban poor i.e.
persons belonging to the Below Poverty Line, Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Lower Income
Groups (LIG) and would be applicable to all cities and towns including that of Census Towns, to enable
planned affordable housing provision. The policy covers various options of housing viz. Ownership,
incremental, rental/social, shelters and other forms. The key interventions and action points are focused
on land, finance, legal and regulatory reforms, technology support and its transfer, provision of
infrastructure, satellite/integrated townships, institutions, capacity building and sustainability concerns.
Providing home ownership to over 18 million households, identified as housing shortage, can prove to be
a challenging task. In an attempt to tackle the issue of growing number of families in urban areas, mostly
with low paying capacities, the National Urban Rental Housing Policy for formulated in 2015.
The above discussion highlights the paradigm shift in the policy approach to increasingly
encourage the stakeholders and market players to collaboratively participate in the process of housing
provision through various mechanisms. The same is envisaged to be carried out in a decentralized manner
to suit the finished product to the local needs, preferences and capacities. Thus the importance of
localized study of housing markets has been virtually established by the series of housing policies
introduced in India.
The table below will describe the legal policy and organisational frame for developing housing
and housing infrastructures.
Naturally making land available in urban or semi urban areas is a very challenging task. There are
four approaches which can be taken to assemble the developable land.
1. Land acquisition
2. Land use and Development Control
3. Land Assemble using readjustment/pooling/reconstitution
4. Guided land development with Partnership
In India, land use has been identified as a state (provincial) subject matter. Whereas any public
authority can acquire land for public purpose as defined in Land Acquisition Act, 1894. Traditionally
compulsory acquisition of land has been a major source of land assembly by the public agency for all
categories of housing and infrastructure development. In 70s, almost all the state governments came up
with Town and Country Planning Acts in order to control over use of land for a sustainable development
and significant numbers of such planning authorities were framed accordingly. However, in 90s, control
over use of urban land was further percolated to the urban local bodies (ULBs or municipalities). On the
other hand, in order to maintain an equitable distribution, the land ownership under any individual has
been restricted for decades. As a result, until 2000, bigger land parcels were scarce, especially in urban
areas for large housing and other projects. Realizing these, governments started exploring various models
(see Table below) for mobilizing large land for mass housing.
Therefore, the land management in India has been flown into two directions. Firstly the control
over use of land has been decentralized up to the ULB level and secondly the extent of ownership of land
has faced multiple restrictions with single ownership, causing scarcity of large land parcels in urban areas.
Through various reforms and interventions as discussed above which government attempted to deregulate
the land and to make it more market friendly to enable developers to develop large housing projects. In
the recently launched PMAY, government is encouraging similar approach in JV models through the sub-
scheme called Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP). However through the state level housing
policies, other approaches like reforms and indirect interventions are applicable for housing.
Sl Model Description of Model
no.
1 Joint Venture Cross subsidy based approach started in the state of West Bengal in the year 2000
(JV) Model and later adopted in the scheme named Affordable Housing in Partnership under
JNNURM and PMAY. This model encourages private companies to form JV with
public agencies like municipal authorities, housing boards and development
authorities. Land is acquired by government partner and development right is given
to private partner for developing housing with 50:50 sharing of profit.
2 Land Reform Various legal and policy initiatives taken by government of India towards making
Model land available from the market avoiding any legal and institutional barriers by doing
Repeal of Urban Land Ceiling and Regulation Act (making large land parcels
available)
Amendment of Land Acquisition Act (making the process simple, shorter,
inclusive and effective)
3 Indirect Various tools like Transferable of Development Right (TDR), Variable Floor Area
intervention Ratio, and Reservation for affordable housing and rental housing has been attempted
Model to increase the total supply of homes in piece of land. Rental housing has been
identified in PMAY as a preventive mechanism for the slum formation.
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Few questions to think and further study
1. Why is it so important to bring set of reforms for housing development? Are the current reforms
appropriate or sufficient for the desired housing in India?
2. What is the visible change in housing policies in last decades? What is the implication of real estate act?
3. Is the concept of state model policy appropriate in bringing the contextual intervention? What are the areas
of specialization where state government should look into?
4. Is the local government capable enough to deliver housing for all? What is the futuristic role of state
housing boards in India?
5. Which approach of land assembly is most suitable for housing in India? What are the strength and
weakness of all such approaches?