Having one’s own house, however small it may be, is a dream of every common man. A place to call one’s own is a big confidence booster. Not only this, the poor people don’t need to arrange to pay rent each month from their meager earning, if they get their own house. It also gives a sense of security to the family.

In India, issue of housing deficit is enormous, due to large population and scarcity of land. Still, there is a ray of hope in the ‘Housing for all by 2022’ scheme of the Central Government. It aims at providing affordable housing to the needy citizens within a given time frame, that too at affordable rates.

Under the programme, different states have built houses on mass scale. For example, more than 16 lakh houses have been constructed since 2014. While in the state of Tamil Nadu, about 2.2 lakh houses have been built, in Andhra Pradesh about 1.9 lakh houses are ready. In Madhya Pradesh, about 1.8 lakh houses have been built while the various states are also at more or less at the same construction stage.

To deal with paucity of land for such housing construction projects, the Central Government has suggested that all the government departments should identify unutilised land in their area. More so, if the land is in the developed government colonies. This is to create a land bank for the affordable housing drive, as some states are facing the issue in planning such housing projects on account of scarcity of land.

Further, the lands such identified will be made available to the state governments on which they can submit proposals for housing projects. The inherent benefits of open land in developed government colonies are like existing basic amenities available there and fewer approvals needed to be processed, according to the urban development ministry.

Till date, the Centre has given green signal to the housing projects worth about Rs 90,000 crore.These housing projects are spread in 30 states and Union Territories of India. These housing projects are expected to create  more than 16 lakh government approved affordable houses for the benefit of the masses.

The Central land available in certain slow moving states including Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Kerala and Delhi will be a boon. This type of land will need fewer approvals being Central property and the states need only to submit a viable housing project for consideration.

The skyrocketing prices of land and houses, including flats in urban and semi urban areas make dream of owning a one’s own home seem impossible. But, programmes like ‘Housing for all by 2022’ make it seem like a dream which may come true, if not today, certainly tomorrow.

Let there be a shelter on the head of every Indian!