[News] ‘Affordable housing’ not so affordable for India’s urban middle class

AnuradhaShukla| newindianexpress.com | Published: 16th July 2019 07:42 AM

Rajeev Bhalla, an IT professional, was very happy when his bankers informed him that he would get a rebate of up to Rs 2 lakh on the purchase of an affordable house. However, when he went to scout for possible locations and apartments he could purchase, all he could find in the Delhi-NCR area were either studio apartments or one BHK (one bedroom-hall-kitchen) flats, much to his disappointment.

“There was no home available in the affordable price bracket. All I was getting was studio apartments or one BHK units. While the scheme is good, the definition of affordable housing is hardly applicable for houses in metro cities,” Bhalla pointed out.

While the government is pushing hard to promote affordable housing, the ground reality is that homes remain unaffordable for a large section of the urban middle class in large metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru. Data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week painted a grim picture, showing that affordability has worsened over the past four years, with Mumbai remaining the least affordable city when it comes to owning a house.

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