Housing for all is a mission that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government carries forward into its second five-year term. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, almost everyone who wants to own a home in urban India should have one by 2022. Under the mission, out of the calculated pent up demand of 100 lakh homes, 81 lakh homes have already been sanctioned under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna or PMAY.

To discuss matters relating to the government's housing initiative, Manisha Natarajan is joined by Shrikant Joshi, CEO and MD of L&T Realty, Sanjay Dutt, MD and CEO of Tata Housing, Arvind Subramanian, CEO of Mahindra Happinest and Mahesh Misra, CEO of IMGC.

Shrikant Joshi, CEO & MD of L&T Realty

“As L&T we participate in a big way under the EPC business so or construction business is very large and they do focus on affordable homes. We are doing a large number both in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, parts of interiors of Maharashtra and I guess in that space we would be one of the largest Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) players as of today. We would be 30-40 percent of the entire market that is getting built today.”

“The only good part of this set of government, last time when they said toilets for all they delivered 90-95 percent of that mission. So is a mission long required for our country? It is not easy to do but if they put their heart to it like they have done in mission mode in phase one it is possible to do but a lot of changes need to be made both on policy, on land, on approvals etc.”

Arvind Subramanian, CEO of Mahindra Happinest

“If 1 crore homes do get delivered, theoretically on paper, that gap gets bridged. The reality is these homes are today getting bought by a mix of people, people who are buying not necessary their first home, these are people who are also buying a second home in some cases. Maybe moving from a poor quality home to a better quality home and therefore there will be still some gap to be bridged. But it will break the back of this chasm between demand and supply if we are able to deliver those 1 crore homes in the next five years.”

Sanjay Dutt, MD and CEO of Tata Housing

“There is a lot of clarity amongst developers that they want to focus on this affordable, urban affordable residential segment and if you look at the most of the urban centers the top few economies of the nation which is driving economy where is NCR, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and such cities you will see 5-6 sectors driving the economies. So IT sector, auto sector, banking and financial services, e-commerce, telecom etc. The needs for the people who are working in these sectors, who want to be in these cities and all the migrant workforce which is coming from other cities and states into these cities to meet their demand the developers have absolute clarity that they come from great scale and a salary scale of Rs 45 -50 lakhs going up to Rs 3 crore. Obviously as you go up the percentage and the pyramid kind of dips so the larger segment will be in Rs 45-75 lakh i.e. housing for the urban centres in the country.”