Coming Soon: Rental Housing Policy For Urban Areas
Three decades post the first National Housing Policy in 1988, the government is bringing in the National Urban Rental Housing Policy. According to Urban Development Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the ministry is working on the policy to alleviate the housing shortage in urban areas by encouraging rental housing since thousands of units lie vacant across cities.
In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Puri said, “Since land and colonisation are state subjects, the matter relating to eviction of tenants by landlords comes under the purview of the rental laws/ by-laws of states and Union Territories. However, in order to create a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive rental housing market in the country, the ministry is preparing a national urban housing policy.”
The policy initiative
There are two components of the policy, the market-driven rental housing and social rental housing for the urban poor. While the market-driven rental housing will maintain the demand-supply equilibrium, the social rental housing will be targeted at the economically weaker sections, low-income groups as well as the section defined as 'tenants by constraint'. This includes the urban poor belonging to scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes, migrants, transgenders and senior citizens.
The market-driven rental housing means institutional rental units such as hostels for students, working men and women, public rental housing for those employed by public sector undertakings and government departments and private rental housing for everyone else.
How rental policy will impact housing scenario
Statistical data suggest that 27.5 per cent of urban Indians live in rented houses, and the NURHP is expected to alleviate the housing shortage in urban India by encouraging renting of homes. According to Dr Niranjan Hiranandani, President (Nation) , NAREDCO, to fulfil Housing for All mission, rental housing policy will act as a key catalyst. He said, “It is not just about owned houses; it implies a roof over one’s head - whether owned or rented, that should not make a major difference.”
He further added that the proposed policy would be positive for Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) , as it would help create a vibrant, sustainable and inclusive rental housing market, as the new policy is expected to have safeguards and guidelines which would encourage property owners to rent houses.
The National Urban Rental Housing Policy will create an ideal situation where landlords will need not fear tenants over-staying while tenants will not have reason to worry about eviction. “If the policy, as expected, effectively guards the interests of both – landlords as also tenants - rental housing in urban areas will definitely get a fillip,” added Hiranandani.
The story so far
While few states and union territories including Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Mumbai Metropolitan Regions have their own rental housing policies, nothing much has been achieved due to lack of political will. For instance, in case of Maharashtra, the original rental housing policy formed to cater the housing needs of the migrants was tweaked to put in a domicile requirement, hence defeating the very purpose of the policy.
Odisha too decided to use the cess collected under the Building and Construction Workers Act for creating rental units for construction labour which forms a significant portion of migrant workers. However, in the last two decades, over Rs 24,014 crore has been collected as cess but only Rs 4,255 crore spent by the states. The upcoming policy suggests that this could be used for constructing rental units.