New Delhi : The Centre’s policies over the last six years have restored the faith among people that they can own a home and rely on the laws to support them if builders fail to deliver their houses on time, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday while laying the foundation stone of Light House Project.
The project involves the construction of around 1,000 houses each with allied infrastructure facilities within a year using new-age alternate global technologies, materials, and processes in Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Rajkot (Gujarat), Chennai (Tamil Nadu), Ranchi (Jharkhand), Agartala (Tripura) and Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh).
Modi likened the project to an incubation centre. He said the government is committed to delivering on its promise of housing for all by 2022, affordable housing for the poor, and rented accommodation for migrant workers. Modi added the project will strengthen cooperative federalism.
“People were losing hope of owning a house even after putting in everything that they had saved. Houses remained on paper… People had also lost faith whether the law of the land will help them if they got into a dispute with the builder,” he said.
Modi said the government has addressed these concerns and made it easy for a middle-class, hard-working family to own a house. He was referring to the Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA) introduced in 2016 to protect the interest of homebuyers and ensure builders do not default on delivery of houses.
“RERA has helped the people believe in realty projects again and that the projects will be completed. Today, 60,000 real-estate projects are registered under RERA. Thousands of cases have also been solved.”
Modi appreciated the efforts of the states in providing housing for the poor and lashed out at the previous governments for not prioritising the sector. “Housing plans were not the priority of the central government in the past. They did not care about the details of the quality of construction. There was a chalta hai [it is okay], chalne do [let it be] approach… Why should not the country get new technology? The houses we build should be sturdy.”
Modi referred to the dislocation and discrimination migrant workers faced during the Covid-19 lockdown and the poor living facilities they are forced to live in. He said the people who toil hard for the country’s development need to live with dignity. “…This is our responsibility. It is the intention of the government that, along with our businesses and investors, we will focus on creating affordable rental housing.”
Modi also announced the winners of the Affordable Sustainable Housing Accelerators with Uttar Pradesh topping the lost followed by Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, and Tripura.
