Affordable housing
This refers to the editorial “Ordinance Raj” (December 31). Land acquisition has been made easy, thanks to the Ordinance that does away with the requirements of social impact assessment (SIA) and minimum consent under the PPP (public-private partnership) projects in areas like roads, ports, metro, and affordable housing, among others. The government needs to define “affordable housing”, which could be a grey area. Earlier,there was no talk of affordable housing in the decades of 1980s and 1990s. People working in the formal sector like banking, government, mill workers, and doctors could very well pool their resources and buy a roof over their heads. But, unfortunately, those days are gone. Housing has become out of reach, due to astronomical prices. People even used to get land from the district administration and give it to a contractor for building flats. There are many such housing colonies in Mumbai, in areas like Chembur. This helped reducing the construction cost by 50% and flats were within the reach of the common people. What is the criteria for affordable housing? Is it easy to get housing loan from banks? Earlier, nationalised banks never used to give housing loans and such loans were only available to employees. One could get a loan for housing from private financial institutions and HDFC has been the pioneer in this area. There was only a fixed rate concept and a penalty for pre-payment of loans. Then came the floating rate concept. What the government needs to do is to help the common man with user-friendly rules and regulations for building residential colonies under a single window system, and public sector undertakings like the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) can guide the common people in redeveloping old buildings. What is needed is guidance and finance, which can be easily provided. Middle-class people are more honest in repaying loans. Affordable housing needs to be taken up on a war-footing, otherwise even the middle-class may have no option but to live in slums once the old buildings crumble. If we say that R25 lakh is affordable housing, how many are earning that much salary in these days of unemployment, rising inflation, and no job security? Buying a decent accommodation will always remain a dream.
Deendayal M Lulla
Mumbai
Mere name-change won’t help
A mere renaming of the Plan panel is not going to do any wonders. The present dispensation at the centre is only focussing on rhetoric. The NDA government has consistently failed to think out of the box. The structure of the NITI Aayog is a threat to federalism. The proposed move to minimise the role of government to an enabler of business reaffirms the new government’s neoliberal and pro-corporate agenda. It seems that the government believes that the ‘trickle down theory’ will solve the problems of our nation.
Kiran Jose, Kerala
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