The housing sector is likely to get relief from the pain of demonetisation with the ‘affordability’ steroid. Budget 2017 has proposed infrastructure status for affordable housing, a long-standing demand of developers, and also increased the allocation for the Prime Minister Awas Yojana from Rs 15,000 crore to Rs 23,000 crore, bringing the country closer to realising the Housing for All mission by 2022. However, no specific incentives were announced for first-time buyers.
One crore houses are to be built by 2019 in rural India for the homeless and those living in ‘kaccha’ houses.
Calling it a “path-breaking Budget, experts say granting infrastructure status to affordable housing is significant as it will provide cheaper sources of finance to developers and also open up additional avenues for developers to raise funds. The segment will now be given priority lending status.
“We propose to facilitate higher investment in affordable housing. Affordable housing will now be given infrastructure status, which will enable these projects to avail the associated benefits,” finance minister Arun Jaitley said.
