REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR ALL

Provision of affordable housing is one of the most formidable challenges that India currently faces. The 11^th Five Year Plan estimates the urban housing shortage at the commencement of Plan period at 24.7 million units, with 99% of this shortage pertaining to the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Lower Income Groups (LIG).  Taking these into account,  Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation had set up a High Level Task Force on the 15th January, 2008 to look into the various aspects of providing Affordable Housing for All under the Chairmanship of Mr. Deepak Parekh, Chairman – HDFC Ltd. to submit a report on the following issues:-

1.       Developing innovative financial instruments for bringing flexibility in the housing market and examining various fiscal and spatial incentives for increasing supply of houses to economically weaker sections and Low Income families.

2.       Affordability of all categories including the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), Low Income Groups (LIG) and Middle Income Groups (MIG) in terms of their income and consequent paying capability as well as other factors; recommending ways and means of enhancing accessibility of EWS/LIG groups to housing with suitable governmental support; and Recommending ways and means of enhancing accessibility of MIG groups to housing.

3.       Examining the framework of Regional Planning and Master Planning with a view to enhancing the supply of developed land and recommending legislative measures for accelerating the supply of housing units for the urban poor.

4.       Recommending measures for promotion of low cost building technologies;

5.       Suggesting steps for enhancing the supply of rental housing;

6.       Assisting the Ministry in devising an integrated strategy for in-situ slum upgradation with a view to improving the quality of habitat as well as providing the urban poor with places to work and sell; and

7.       Advising the Ministry about various types of programme initiatives with the aim of achieving the goal of “Affordable Housing for All”.

Shri Deepak Parekh, Chairman of the Task Force presented the report to Kumari Selja, Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation today. A presentation on the recommendations was made before Minister, which was attended by Ms. Kiran Dhingra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Shri S.K. Singh, Joint Secretary (Housing), Dr. P.K. Mohanty, Mission Director (JNNURM) and Prof. OP Mathur.

            The Minister informed that Ministry will examine the recommendations made by the Task Force and take a view in the matter.

Recommendations of the Task Force

The Task Force has strongly recommended the need for ‘Affordable Housing’ and mentioned that delay in addressing the affordable housing problem would seriously affect India’s economic growth and poverty reduction strategies. The Task Force notes that housing is central to economic growth and has multiplier effects on employment, poverty reduction etc. The Task Force estimates that alleviating the urban housing shortage could potentially raise the rate of growth of GDP by at least 1-1.5 percent and have a decisive impact on improving the basic quality of life.

Some of the specific recommendation of the Task Force are:-

Affordable Housing

·         “Affordable Housing” be put at the centre of public policy.

·         Any attempt to fix a definition of affordable housing for a country as large and diverse as India, using the concept of “one-size-fits-all” is counter-productive. However, the Task Force
has suggested the following parameters for the purpose

 

 

 

 

 

The Task Force visualises the size of the household as five members.                            

·         Government to may undertake a separate exercise to estimate the number of households on the basis of above.

·         Data on housing starts and completions at the national and state level be made readily available and may be collected through an institutional structure.

 

Land for Affordable Housing

·         Additional lands may be brought into urban usage on a regular basis by:

·         Simplifying procedures and processes for land acquisition and conversion of agricultural lands for urban use.

·         Reviewing the processes of Master Planning and effecting such changes as are necessary for making a proper assessment of land requirements and allocation of such lands for different uses, including lands for affordable housing. 

·         Treat affordable housing as a ‘public purpose.’

·         Upward revision in the FAR/FSI, across cities of different sizes commensurate with investment in infrastructure that it will necessitate.

·         Develop detailed critical space plans, which incorporate infrastructure intensive cluster development.

·         Impose an impact fee on those benefiting from higher FAR/FSI.

·         In-situ development on public lands for addressing affordable housing issues in partnership with the Government.

·         ‘Security of tenure’ be recognised as an important and integral tool for relieving pressures on the housing market. This may undertaken through regularisation of settlements, community or cooperative ownership, security via lease, use rights, which enables in-situ development to take place.

·         The recommendations on land related issues i.e. bringing in additional lands, upward revision in the FAR/FSI and in-situ development have to be implemented in an integrated manner.

·         Improve the speed of transactions through cadastrals, computerised land records and application of e-governance to land transactions.

·         Commission a professional study, to examine the range of issues covering urban land and recommend a comprehensive, long-term urban land policy. Given the environmental concerns, “sustainable” methodologies need to be developed.

·         Need to foster an environment that would make rental housing for EWS/LIG categories a worthwhile activity to invest in.

 

Fiscal and Financial Framework

·         Increase JNNURM funds for affordable housing by 100 percent and a part of the funds be used for direct provisioning of housing for poor urban households.

·         A part of the funds be also used as supplements for in-situ development to be routed through the Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and Community Based Organisations (CBOs).

·         A cess of 0.5 percent on all central government taxes be credited to a dedicated Shelter Fund, to be managed by the National Housing Bank, with a budgetary support of equal amount, so as to make a long-term impact on affordable housing.

·         Permit housing finance institutions (HFIs) to access long-term External Commercial Borrowing (ECB) market, since the HFIs require long-term funding sources at the lowest cost possible to pass on to the ultimate borrowers.

·         Role of State Housing Boards be revamped and the Boards be encouraged to focus on playing a more active role in the provision of affordable housing, even if it is through public private partnerships.

·         Funds raised through the sale of land transactions by State Housing Boards must be ring fenced, with a defined proportion to be redeployed only for affordable housing.

·         Modifications in Income Tax Act for HFCs and developers engaged in affordable housing projects.

·         Reduction in stamp duty rates and registration fee for affordable housing to 2% ad valorem uniformly in all states.

·         Levy a flat charge of Rs. 1,000 on registration of equitable mortgages.

·         Bring “affordable housing” under the infrastructure definition.

·         Establish a housing finance company focusing only on housing micro-finance loans.

·         Promote household savings in the informal sector

Technology for Cost Effectiveness

·         A low-rise high-density built form is recommend as an appropriate measure for upgrading, redevelopment or construction of housing projects for the lower income groups.

Institutional Framework

·         The real estate should be regulated through a regulator and pending the legislative process for having real estate regulators in place in the States, consideration should be given to set up Ombudsman type bodies at the State level. 

·         The role of the housing and real estate Ombudsman would be to monitor JNNURM housing projects, ensure that proper appraisals are being done, collect relevant data, identify beneficiaries for JNNURM housing projects and address consumer grievances.

·          

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AVC/MRS

Recycling Road On Fast Track6 Jun 2007, 0255 hrs IST, Megha Suri, TNN

NEW DELHI: That road repairs would invariably lead to traffic jams is a fact commuters in the city have long reconciled to. But not anymore. For the first time in the Capital, the Delhi government has decided to use a recycling technology that would enable the carpeted road to take the traffic load within a few hours of the completion of the work. In a first of its kind in the city, this environment-friendly recycling technology is being used to carpet the bumpy Mehrauli-Badarpur (MB) Road.
The 11.6-km road is being carpeted using the Canadian road recycling technology under which the asphalt of the top layer is heated and carefully removed. This is reused to make the new road unlike the generally used re-surfacing method in which another layer of asphalt is rolled onto the existing road.
From commuters' point of view, the road does not need to be closed for repair since only one lane is recycled at a time. The new road comes up faster and lasts longer too.
The project, which got the Delhi government's nod, is being carried out by Telcon Ecoroad Resurfaces Pvt Ltd (TERPL), a Tata associate company, in consultation with Central Road Research Institute (CRRI). Dr Sunil Bose, deputy director at CRRI, told Times City: "The new technology is suited for our conditions and is cost-effective and environment-friendly. It helps save the aggregate — different sizes of rocks — too."
The quantity of fresh aggregate and bitumen needed in the recycling process is about one-third, compared to overlaying, as a major quantity of asphalt is drawn from the recycled mix. This helps in conserving the environment because aggregate comes from cutting hills, and bitumen from crude oil — both of which are finite natural resources. Since 100% aggregate from the existing road is recycled, less trees will have to be cut to make roads, resulting in a major saving of natural resources.
In terms of cost, making a recycled road costs about Rs 250/sq m as against conventional overlaying at Rs 200/sq m. "Even though this seems more, recycling works out cheaper in the long run," said H K Sehgal, TERPL's chief operating officer.
Sehgal explained that in the conventional overlaying process, since new aggregate layers are added one after another, the height of the road gets increased over the years. Authorities need to raise the height of street furniture like traffic signals, streetlights and the central verge and footpaths after every few years, which is expensive. The new technology removes the top 60 mm of the road surface, so its height remains unaltered.
Resurfacing affects only the top 40 mm of a road, which forms part of the new layer. But if the road has deeper cracks, the new layer tends to develop potholes faster with load. In recycling, experts say, the road is heated which causes bitumen to creep into deeper cracks repairing them as well.
The new technology uses an assembly line of seven machines which are made to pass over the stretch in a line. And as the last machine, a road-roller, moves past, the road-recycling process is complete.
Each of the machines has a different role to perform. For the process, the top layer of the road — about 60 mm of asphalt — is heated by the first two machines. This is done to melt the bitumen in the asphalt mix so that the pieces of aggregate can be separated and used again. The next machine, a miller, cuts the surface and stores the asphalt mix removed from the worn-out road.
The material from the road is generally of reduced strength, compared to the norms prescribed by Indian Roads Congress, because of withering by use. The composition is rejuvenated by adding fresh bitumen and aggregate. The new mixture — approved after stringent lab and on-site tests — is put in a mixer, from where it flows on a paver machine, attached to the mixer. A conveyer belt on the paver dispenses the required quantity of recycled asphalt on the road. This is levelled by two road-rollers, with steel and rubber tyres. The new road is made at a speed of three metres per minute.
TERPL has made two roads using the same technology in Jamshedpur and Baroda. But Mehrauli-Badarpur Road is their first government road-recycling project in India. PWD engineer-in-chief R Subramanian said that the civic body is also going to remove all encroachments and mend broken footpaths.
And if the road passes the test, the government is planning to redo several other important corridors using the same technology before the Commonwealth Games.
megha.suri@timesgroup.com
Courtesy: Times of India