Affordable housing a big PPP opportunity: Kumari Selja

Affordable housing is no more a welfare programme and is being increasingly seen as a commercial opportunity, in which both the public sector and the private sector are stakeholders, said Kumari Selja, minister for tourism.

Addressing the inaugural session of a national conference on public-private partnership in housing in New Delhi on Friday, the minister said the enhancement of housing stock must be accompanied with high quality provision of basic services and this would increase the scope for PPP projects.

In order to improve the quality of life in urban areas, it is of critical significance that the housing stock is improved through urban renewal, in situ slum improvement and development of new housing stock in existing cities as well as new townships, said Kumari Selja.

The minister's speech, read in absentia, said, it is a well established fact that safe, hygienic and spacious provisioning of housing duly buttressed with adequate basic services and a congenial habitat promotes significant improvement in productivity of workers. "It has its social benefits too; as a nation of home-owners invariably becomes a nation of law-abiding and responsible citizens with a real stake in community welfare," she said.

The conference also marked the operationalisation of an important element of the national urban housing and habitat policy 2007 - that of creating `affordable housing for all. This, she said, can only be met with the involvement of all stakeholders and through multiple partnerships.

The urban affordable housing segment is the largest chunk of the domestic housing market, and the demand for it is steady and growing and is unlikely to shrink with the markets or the global economy. Private developers need to exploit the long term entrepreneurial and business opportunities that lie locked in affordable housing, she said.