Affordable Housing Receives A Continued Push In The Budget

The thrust on affordable housing in line with the PM’s vision for all by 2022 continues.

Pradeep Aggarwal, Co-Founder and Chairman, Signature Global and Chairman - ASSOCHAM National Council on Real Estate, Housing and Urban Development, said, “The full Union Budget 2019 -20, presented by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announces to continue its consistent approach towards affordable housing with more focus on increasing the carpet area, re-defining income criteria and giving infrastructure status under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.” 

Here are some of the key takeaways

- The government aims to increase the number of beneficiaries in terms of the credit-linked subsidy scheme (CLSS). Moreover, the number of days in constructing the houses have been reduced to 114 from 314 in 2015-16 and this only with the use of DBT platform and technology. 

- Major tax benefits have been announced that will stimulate the demand for affordable housing. Interest deduction offered is now up to Rs 3.5 lakh for affordable housing (priced

Says Amit Modi, President (Elect), CREDAI – Western UP and Director, ABA Corp, “We appreciate that this Union Budget has empathised on affordable housing and Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna with its proposal of 1.95 crore houses under PMAY (Grameen) by 2021 and over 80 lakh houses have been sanctioned under PMAY (Urban).  

However, he says that at the same time, the government has missed the bus when it comes to millions and millions of first time middle class buyers who were looking forward to this budget before their first real estate purchase, the fact is that even a small 1-2bhk Apartment in Tier-1 Metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore will cost starting Rs 50 lakh and above and these urban buyers looking at ease of living in cities have been completely ignored in the process.

Also, he adds that the legitimate sector concerns including Industry Status for Real Estate Sector and Online Single Window clearance have been missed out in this budget. “We feel that these steps in particular would have made a huge difference in transparency and turnaround time in delivery of housing to the masses across the country, while contributing towards the goal of Housing for All 2022.”