"The government must facilitate movement in these areas," he countered when it was pointed out to him that the union minister for urban affairs & employment had announced that 100 per cent FDI will be allowed in the housing sector.Explaining the term `facilitate movement', Godrej, who is also the chairman of CII's urban infrastructure committee said for attracting larger private investment, the laws must be clear and transparent so that public interest litigations that stall projects and court's interference are stopped.Stressingthat world-wide private water supply, sewerage and road projects were being encouraged, Godrej said the government should speed up the process of private sector participation by providing more incentives.

For example, in the roads sector he said the government should take the initiative to provide additional land to private promoters of road projects so that extra facilities for petrol pumps, restaurants, recreation and entertainment, motels etc could also be developed."Tolls are not the only way to increase the revenues of the private sector," he said adding that major revenues would come from development of such facilities.While welcoming the boost given to the housing sector in the budget, Adi Godrej sought the finance minister's initiative to amend the cumbersome rules and laws for recovery of property in the event of defaults.

He argued that cost of interest on housing sector loans must be minimised and mortgage of property must be for a very long period, not just short-term as it is in thecountry."The outgo of interest and principals is too high. And the government should allow back-ended mortgages for 50 years as 15 years is not enough", he observed.Although financial institutions have begun to take interest in funding infrastructure projects, they usually resort to short-term lending unlike in the US and Singapore where funds are given for long-gestation projects. "Like in these countries we need to source long-term funding from insurance, provident fund and pension funds to really make housing cheap and affordable," he noted.According to Godrej the only negative feature of the Budget was the surcharge on customs duty and income tax. Of the $ 40 billion FDI which China garners nearly 50 per cent goes into property development. If thissegment is opened up, after initially testing the waters, more FDI investment will find its way into the country.