Housing Markets and Housing Policies in India

Issues of housing in India are synonymous with ignorance of housing in active government involvement at the policy and program formulation levels. They are also due to the problems that unplanned urbanization, income disparity, poverty, illiteracy, and unemployment brought. These issues extenuated the housing problem, causing a housing shortage of 51 million in 2011. Though India has a long history of establishing policies, programs, and institutions to cater to housing, without allocating adequate resources, their impact in ameliorating the shortage has been marginal. This paper argues that to address the housing shortage in India, there is desperate need to prepare a framework for housing by (i) including housing as a constitutional right; (ii) resolving issues of unclear land titles and ensuing claims; (iii) building adequate financial resources for affordable housing programs; (iv) building responsive instruments to facilitate the affordability of housing by all income segments; and (v) overcoming market segmentation, which is currently catering to the housing needs of creditworthy clients and is overlooking the growing demand from middle- and lower-income segments. India needs to leverage its extensive architecture of agencies, policies, and market frameworks for housing by equipping them with adequate resources so they can deliver housing for all.