To take forward the Modi Government’s vision of providing ‘housing for all by 2022’, the Union Urban Development Ministry will hold a two-day meeting from July 2 with the State Ministers.
“The meeting is aimed to take the States and Union Territories on board on various aspects of urban development and providing ‘Housing for all by 2022’,” said a senior UD official.To be organised by the Ministries of Urban Development and Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation and presided by the UD Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, the theme of the meet is “Urban Governance and Housing For All: Opportunities and Challenges”.
Housing is a major challenge with an estimated shortfall of about 190 lakh units in urban areas at present and expected to rise to 300 million by 2022 by when the central government desires to ensure housing for all in the 75th year of country’s Independence, the official said. He added, with the country set to be primarily ‘urban’ with more than 50% of the people living in urban areas i.e about 875 millions in the near future, urban governance emerges as the major challenge.
On the first day of the meeting, administrative secretaries, experts and other stakeholders including financial institutions will hold an intensive brain storming workshop on implementation issues including the bottlenecks faced in execution of various projects in urban areas and new initiatives required to meet the emerging urban challenges in an effective manner.
The agenda for discussion also include completion of construction of houses under Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), progress of housing under ‘Affordable Housing in Partnership’ and ‘Rajiv Awas Yojana’, issues relating to urban infrastructure including transport, sanitation, increasing land availability through pooling and innovative land development models, providing incentives to developers/builders to encourage affordable housing and rental housing projects, GIS-based urban planning, urban reforms etc, said the official.