President Pranab Mukherjee today called on industry to work hand in hand with the government to provide affordable and sustainable houses to the poor and economically weaker sections of society. Inaugurating the two day 11th National Convention on Sustainable Housing for the Masses in New Delhi, Mr. Mukherjee stressed for housing projects to have options for low income groups to ensure inclusive growth. Reminding, the housing and real estate sector holds the key to prosperity, Mukherjee asked the private sector to supplement government efforts to provide food, clothing and shelter to all.

Mr. Mukherjee urged for developing secondary cities to ease the pressure of urbanisation due to unavoidable migration. The President pointed out that there is a shortage of 80.78 million houses in 2012 and 95 per cent of it is among the economically weaker sections. He asked, the private sector to achieve synergy in partnership with the government in executing projects for the poor and economically weaker sections under Public Private Partnership model to address the challenges in housing sector. The President also asked banks to come up with innovative solutions to lend to the poor and low income group so that they too could afford a home.
Speaking on the ocassion, Urban development and poverty alleviation minister Ajay Maken said, the government is working on a Real Estate and Development Bill to ensure transparency and accountability in the sector. Mr. Maken said, the 26.3 million dwelling units were added in the last decade due to consistent efforts of the government to provide affordable housing to the common man.

In Rajasthan, the state government is to Implement Mukhyamantri BPL Awas Yojna to provide low cost housing facility on public private partnership mode to the Economically weaker sections.

 The Centre has asked the states to repeal archaic housing rent laws. The Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation Minister Kumari Selja said this will help instill confidence in people in rental housing sector. She also sought private partnership to reduce the gap in demand and supply of housing in urban areas and appealed to private developers to focus on affordable housing sector instead of catering only to the needs of a small section where the demand is limited.

She was releasing a report by a technical group on estimating urban housing shortage for the 12th Five Year Plan in New Delhi on Saturday.

AIR correspondent reports, the group has estimated housing shortage of 18.78 million at the beginning of the 12th Plan period. The maximum shortage exists among economically weaker sections and low income groups. The report has suggested several measures, including bringing vacant houses into the housing market through taxation and incentives polices, to eliminate housing shortage.

 n a major setback to the Sahara Group, the Supreme Court today directed two of its companies to refund around Rs 17,400 crore to their investors within
three months with 15 per cent interest.

A bench of justices K S Radhakrishnan and J S Khehar directed SEBI to take action against the companies of Sahara India Real Estate Corporation and Sahara Housing Investment Corporation, if they fail to refund the money. The apex court allowed the regulatory body to attach properties and freeze bank accounts of these two companies if they did not comply with its order.

The bench further directed SEBI to conduct investigation against these companies to find out their actual subscriber base besides getting other relevant information.

It also directed the companies to furnish all their documents and account details to SEBI. The court also appointed a former apex court judge B N Aggarwal to oversee the probe by SEBI against the two Sahara firms.

 he government has allowed housing financing companies to raise funds through external commercial borrowings, ECBs route to finance low-cost housing projects. A Finance Ministry statement said it has been decided that entities like National Housing Bank ,NHB and Housing Finance Companies, HFC will be included as eligible borrowers for financing such low cost housing projects.

Earliar, the Finance Minister P Chidambaram had asked Indian Bankers Association (IBA) to form a committee to advise the government on tackling the slowdown in the housing demand.

The High Level Committee on External Commercial Borrowings which met New Delhi on Wednesday, also permitted Foreign institutional investors to invest up to USD five billion in rupee bonds within the overall corporate bond limit of USD 45 billion.

he Lt.Gen J.P. Nehra Adjutant general, army hqrs, Friday inaugurated a housing project by unveiling the plaque at the project site in Thazhambur at the Old Mahabalipuram road near Chennai.


The project which will be the largest one in Chennai will have a built up residential area in one million sq ft facing the Bay of Bengal.


With a mission to provide structurally sound economically viable and functionally efficient dwelling units for serving and retired army personnel and their families on a no profit no loss basis, the Army welfare housing project will implement the scheme.


There will be a 30 thousand sq ft club house also in the campus. The dwelling units would be built with modern amenities. The homes will be intricately designed with ample greenery in accordance with the location’s compulsory green norms.