Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday called for adopting ‘Team India’ approach and exhorted the States to work in tandem in ensuring housing for all by 2022, the 75th year of the country’s Independence.
With housing shortage in urban areas expected to rise to 300 lakh units in 2022 from the present about 190 lakhs, he underlined for the “need for a radical shift in approaches to urban planning, development and management to effectively meet the growing challenges of urbanisation being driven by liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation.”
Speaking at the workshop of Secretaries of Urban Development, Housing and local Bodies of central and State and UT Governments, he underscored that people were keen about delivery of quality and assured services for which they were willing to pay and that this needs to be factored in urban planning.
Naidu stressed that the issues of illegal constructions and encroachments should be dealt with strict enforcement of transparency and accountability on the part of all concerned while to bridge the rural-urban divide there was a need to use appropriate technologies like GIS for urban planning.