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Can India bridge the looming housing shortage in urban areas?
Adequate and affordable housing is crucial to ensure a dignified life with physical, psychological, social and economic security for the people of a country but growing concentration of people in urban areas has resulted in an increase in the number of people living in slums and squatter settlements. Skyrocketing prices of land and real estate in urban areas have induced the poor and the economically weaker sections of the society to occupy the marginal lands typified by poor housing stock, congestion and obsolescence. It is apparent that substantial housing shortage looms in Urban India and a wide gap exists between the demand and supply of housing, both in terms of quantity and quality.
An article in the recent issue (Vol 7, Issue 1) of Journal of Infrastructure development explicates the urban housing situation in India using the data from Census and NSS Housing Condition Rounds.
Households living in congested conditions were found to be one of the main factors leading to these housing shortages. India’s urban housing shortage is being primarily driven by the EWS (Economically Weaker Section) and LIG (Lower Income Group) categories. However, majority of the housing supply that has been built across urban India is beyond the affordability of the EWS and LIG segment.
Apart from this, other factors contributing to housing shortage are non-serviceable temporary houses, obsolescent houses and households living in homeless conditions. Besides housing, there are high deprivations in access to basic amenities like drinking water and latrine facilities in houses in urban India. The article also presents a data on ‘Economic category-wise urban housing shortages in 2012’ estimated by the Technical Group on Urban Housing Shortage which clearly indicate lag of EWS and LIG households in attaining housing.
The results displayed in the article call for the immediate attention from the state, towards adequate and affordable urban housing by allowing more housing supply with the aim of eradicating shelter deprivation and enhancing the quality of life, therefore the article also discusses some measures which will help in effectively achieving housing targets and reducing dependency on the single remedy of supply of affordable housing by the state, which may have obstacles like high gestation periods. It also presses upon the need of prioritising inclusive development so that the interests of the rich and well represented do not prevail at the cost of poor becoming poorer and weak falling into destitution.
The article concludes over this matter stating that the overall planning strategy for urban housing needs to be supplemented with socio-spatial perspective, in order to achieve targets effectively and efficiently, which would help to eliminate the housing shortages by 2022 and to deliver the provision of housing for all, as stipulated by the new government.
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