India’s housing policy since independence has been confused and Track2Realty finds it is more about managing the shortages than creating surplus.
The old eyes of 88 years old Ram Naresh Bajwa can’t believe Punjabi Bagh, a non-descript and refugee colony at the time of India’s independence could change so much in the last few years. Having got his small piece of plot post partition, he is witness to the sea change in India’s urban living over these years.
What Bajwa can’t still reconcile is how people are living in high rises in the neighbourhood. “Is there any dearth of land parcels in the country? It’s like men hanging over the concrete blocks. I fail to understand this kind of urban high rise living,” he wonders.
What is amusing to this man who has been among the first beneficiaries of government allotted land parcel in independent India is actually a raging debate world over – whether to go for sprawling horizontal growth with plotted housing or concentrate in and around the CBDs (Central Business Districts) in high rise buildings.
Indian track record since independence has, unfortunately, been more of confusion with urbanization in general and housing shortage in particular. The clarity over horizontal growth versus vertical living is still elusive. As a matter of fact, India’s urban housing shortage has its genesis with flawed housing policies, or the lack of it, since independence. Flooded with the refugees in need of shelter the policy makers preferred an easy route of allotting the land parcels as plots. Infrastructure in and around back then was non-existent and there had been no concept of high rise and mass housing at that point of time.
As a result, the urban housing growth was confined to select localities since the livability index of physical infrastructure, social infrastructure and, more importantly, economic infrastructure was confined to these select localities.
India’s housing conundrum & landmarks since independence
Plots being granted post independence
Chandigarh emerged as the first planned city in 1953
DDA was formed in 1957
Gandhinagar was established as a new city in 1960
Planning Commission guidelines for district planning in 1969
HUDCO was set up in 1970
CIDCO came into existence in 1971
MMRDA was set up in 1975
National Housing Bank came into existence in 1988
Housing Development Finance Corporation came into being in 1994
India’s urban housing today could at best be described as a soda bottle syndrome where the constant rural push to the select few urban centers could explode at any given point of time. It is not that the policy makers are unaware with the growing population and its dependence over the metro cities. As a matter of fact, when the country’s first planned city, Chandigarh, came into existence as a horizontal city that could cater as the capital of both the Punjab and Haryana State, it seemed to be independent India’s first tryst with organized urban planning in general and its housing solution in particular.
However, due to poor resources, lack of infrastructure and vision, creating another Chandigarh like city remained a distant dream. All the government housing agencies, starting with the establishment of DDA (Delhi Development Authority) that was supposed to create mass housing failed to deliver. Getting a house allotted through DDA, GDA, MHADA or Noida Authority was akin to waiting endlessly to win a lottery due to supply shortage compared to the ever-growing demand.
In the India’s IT corridors of South Indian cities, realities are no different. In Bengaluru, the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palika) that is the oldest and fourth largest administrative body in India and responsible for zoning & building regulations, along with quality of life issues like public open space, water bodies, parks and greenery has failed miserably since independence to turn the city into concrete urban jungle.
The story is very much the same with Hyderabad, India’s only city that allows an unlimited FSI (average being 9 as against the national average of 2) and hence the city suffers from infrastructure bottlenecks. Chennai has thus far been a better case study in urban living due to its more focus on plotted row houses than the high rises. But then the civic and municipal woes of Chennai has been exposed time and again during the cyclones.
The first wave of change post the economic liberalization, followed by second wave of change post FDI in 2004, practically ended the monopoly of the government housing agencies and boards. Today there are more housing stocks available in the market by the private developers. Furthermore, with the competition creeping in, the quality issues of the government housing boards also became an issue.
Of course, Indian at its 75th Independence Day still remains a housing deficit country, but yet the dichotomy of demand & supply equilibrium is such that there are housing stocks ready in the metro cities waiting to be grabbed.
The real challenge now is housing stocks’ concentration in select pockets only, where livability index is poor and load on infrastructure is huge. It is only the economic activity and job catchment areas that is defining the housing market with cliched ‘location, location & location’ in this part of the world.
The larger question on the 75th Independence Day is whether there are any lessons learnt. Of course, lessons are writ large on the wall but also largely ignored. Some of the lessons that could goad the Indian housing market to holistic growth, lead to better quality of life and also make the housing affordable are:
Create new cities as engines of economic growth
Infrastructure growth at the periphery locations
Holistic physical, social & economic growth
Horizontal planning of cities
Tier II & III cities to be developed like Chinese small towns
Expediting industrial corridors that connect smaller cities
Incentivize manufacturing & job creation beyond metro cities
Had the wishes been horses, the Indian housing market would not have been grappling with contradiction of an inventory overhang and housing shortage at the 75th Independence Day.
Ravi Sinha
#RaviTrack2Media
Track2Realty is an independent media group managed by a consortium of journalists. Starting as the first e-newspaper in the Indian real estate sector in 2011, the group has today evolved as a think-tank on the sector with specialized research reports and rating & ranking. We are editorially independent and free from commercial bias and/or influenced by investors or shareholders. Our editorial team has no clash of interest in practicing high quality journalism that is free, frank & fearless.
Subscribe our YouTube Channel @ https://bit.ly/2tDugGl
