Maken lists schemes to provide affordable housing for urban poor

To help the urban poor, who have been overlooked by banks and financial institutions to lend housing loans stating their ‘informal nature of employment’, the centre has been implementing Interest Subsidy Scheme for Housing the Urban Poor (ISHUP) wherein 5% interest subsidy is given for loans upto Rs. 1 lakh, said Ajay Maken, Union Minister of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA), in the Rajya Sabha.

A Credit Risk Guarantee Fund with a corpus of 1,000 crore has also been set up to secure the housing loans provided to EWS/LIG beneficiaries upto Rs. 5 lakh, the minister said in a written reply to a question raised by Jharna Das Baidya.

The Minister stated that banks and financial institutions hesitating to lend for housing to Economically Weaker Section (EWS) households as they lack demonstrable credit worthiness due to informal nature of their employment and irregular cash flows. Channelization of credit EWS / Low Income Group (LIG) segments is also affected by the higher risk perceptions by the banks.

Pointing out that ‘land and colonisation’ are the state subjects, he said, “It is the primary responsibility of states to provide affordable housing to all citizens. However, in order to supplement and complement the states’ initiatives, the centre has been implementing various schemes in this regard like Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), ISHUP and Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP).

Technical Group on estimation of urban housing shortage in the country which was constituted by Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, has estimated that the total urban housing shortage at the beginning of the 12th Five Year Plan period i.e. 2012 is 18.78 million. According to Census of India 2011, the total number of vacant houses in the urban areas is 11.09 million (or 10.10%) of the total number of census houses in urban areas i.e. 110.14 million.