Centre to provide houses on rent to migrant workers

NEW DELHI: Local authorities providing rental housing facilities to migrant work force and employees will be one of the main focus areas under the government's ambitious scheme to provide ' Housing for All' in urban areas. The flagship scheme is likely to be cleared by the Cabinet this week, which also envisages building at least two crore affordable houses for the poor in cities and towns with an investment of Rs 13 lakh crore by 2022.

Though this won't be modeled exactly on the lines of "chawls" in Mumbai, government sources said the inspiration for this scheme has come from chawls, which were constructed in abundance in the early 1900s to house the people migrating to Mumbai because of its booming cotton mills and overall strong economy.

Sources said the scheme got a go ahead from the expenditure finance committee (EFC) last week after the Prime Minister took a final presentation. "The rental housing scheme would be run by the local authorities including municipal bodies. There can be individual flats for families and dormitories like facilities for others. Such accommodation would be provided for a limited period, say 2-3 years," said a government source.

The official said this will prove beneficial for people whose monthly earning would be up to Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000. This section of people can't buy flats in urban areas. "While Centre will provide some funding for this scheme, one section of investment would come from allocation of corporates under their corporate social responsibility (CSR). Base survey would be conducted in cities to identify the requirement and how such accommodation facilities can be provided expeditiously. We are not setting any targets," another housing ministry official said.

The ministry has proposed allocation of Rs 6,000 crore for this purpose and is also exploring the public-private-partnership (PPP) model to build such complexes in a big scale across cities.

Another big component of the 'Housing for All' scheme is to construct at least two crore affordable housing in urban areas. Sources said the cost of such flats have been reworked from Rs 7.5 lakh to Rs 6.5 lakh. There are also provisions including interest subvention scheme in the housing sector that will meet part of the buyers' home loan burden.