Real estate sector needs policy reforms on affordability, approvals to unlock growth: Experts

New Delhi: India's real estate sector needs faster approvals, digitised land records and a policy framework to address rising housing costs, industry experts said on Tuesday, highlighting affordability and ease of doing business as key challenges that need to be addressed to support the sector's future growth.

Speaking on the sidelines of the National Conference on Real Estate for Viksit Bharat: Enabling Growth, Investment & Ease of Doing Business, organised by ASSOCHAM, industry representatives called for policy interventions to make housing more affordable and streamline processes for developers.

Chairman of the CII Real Estate Committee, Northern Region, Ashwinder R Singh said rising land prices had made affordable housing increasingly difficult and called for a dedicated policy to address the issue.


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"Affordable housing is a complex issue. The land prices have gone up. There are certain policy interventions required," Singh said.

"There's a lot of work happening both in the private sector and the public sector, and the government is involved. But this is a big headwind that needs to be resolved quickly, and we need to come out with an affordable housing policy that kind of addresses this," he added.

Singh said the issue had become increasingly important as home prices were moving beyond the reach of ordinary buyers.

"Because the current home prices are going out of bounds for the common man, which is a fact. We have to address this. If we don't talk about it, there will never be a solution around it," he said.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the National Council on Real Estate, Housing, Urban Development, Pradeep Aggarwal highlighted the need to improve the ease of doing business through faster approvals and greater use of technology.

"There are challenges around approvals, especially the long-standing demand for single-window clearance. Land records need to be digitised, approvals need to become faster, and technology adoption needs to improve," Aggarwal said.

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He said the focus was also shifting from simply constructing buildings to developing smarter and more sustainable structures, including green buildings.

"The focus is not just on building structures, but on making buildings smarter and more sustainable," he said.

Aggarwal added that developers were increasingly adopting such practices and said their impact would become more visible in the coming years.

The industry comments point to the need for policy measures addressing both housing affordability and development processes as the real estate sector looks to support future growth.