Challenges associated with affordable housing

While building affordable residential units as part of the union government’s ‘Housing for all Scheme’ has been the talk of the town off late, We list out some of the key challenges diluting this ambitious initiative in the country-:

Land pool availability

A lack of significant chunks of affordable land for large scale construction in urban localities is one among the primary challenges upfront the initiative. While many affordable residential projects have mushroomed in the outskirts of major cities, the absence of an efficient, quality public transport to reduce commuting time, continues to hinder their sales.

Low literacy

The low income segment often face countless difficulties in proving their credit worthiness to avail a home loan as they are unable to furnish a document of their household income. Special training programs to make this segment aware of the financial processes involved in securing a home as well as providing them with financial assistance come as the need of the hour to resolve this challenge.

Unplanned development

The cities of the country have swelled in an extremely unplanned and jumbled manner due to rapid migration to urban regions which has further mounted in recent years due to centralization of economic and employment opportunities.

While the escalating pressure from the booming population has concluded in construction of high rise structures, this has also led to emergence of other issues like lack of civic infrastructure including parking spaces, parks etc. In such a scenario providing these amenities at minimal costs to the economically weaker section of the society comes as a mammoth task.

Availability of cheap raw materials

Construction of affordable houses on a gigantic scale will involve abundance of construction related raw materials at cheaper prices. With the real estate sector witnessing a consistent rise in the prices of construction materials, developing affordable townships will be a tough nut to crack for the 

developers.

An affordable house seeker eyes a significant value proposition, given the budget constraints and inability to avail credit, purchasing a home comes as the biggest investment decision of lifetime for the low income segment. In such a scenario a well constructed unit with thoughtfully planned amenities including proper sanitation, easy connectivity, uninterrupted power and water supply etc. truly comes as a value for money proposition for a buyer in this segment.

There is no doubt that India being home to millions of homeless individuals possesses tremendous opportunities in the affordable housing domain. Since a large number of country based developers are only focused on targeting the middle and high income segment, a collective effort by both real estate developers and civic authorities is the need of the hour to tackle these challenges and accomplish this noble initiative.