I was in Delhi yesterday. I had a Workshop on Affordable Housing to attend, as member of National Task Force. I also attended an Audit Committee meeting on KMRCL (where I am a member director; KMRCL deals with East-West Metro). I also took the opportunity to meet Secretary UD GoI, Director of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Vice Chairman DDA, Addl Secretary MoEF and others to request them again to participate in Saturday's workshop.
At the National workshop on Affordable Housing, I learnt of quite a few interesting things:
(a) Section 35AD of the Income tax Act now gives some benefits to investors who develop Affordable Housing for EWS/LIG/MIG
(b) There are seven or so new construction methodologies that have been identified for quick construction of Affordable Houses. Some deal with monolithic, mould based casting technology.
(c) In some states, they are making "hollow plinth" mecthod for using the hollowness as car parking.
(d) In one model, 10 flats/ apartments are being placed on the same floor to minimise costs for 30 sq m flats.
(e) Some Housing Finance Corporations are using NGOs / SHGs to help on paperwork for loans.
We also deliberated at length on definition of EWS/LIG etc
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Times of India has brought out a story on LRT:
Fantastic update and that too when it came after such a long time. :-)
ReplyDelete1. IT-Benefit is a great idea. Hope it encourages more developers to look at this.
2. Good that innovations are happening in a matured field like construction technology.
3. "Hollow plinth" seems to be good idea. I just googled about this.
So few questions:
1. Are we coming up with a plan and a timeline for relocating the economically weaker section ( EWS) people of slums in Kolkata to affordable housing gradually? That can be a great idea. Horizontal sprawls of slums can be used for multiple vertical highrises and the developer can construct a single tower to accomodate EWS Section. A part of the profit that the developer makes can be earmarked for annual maintenance charge of the EWS Flats . Otherwise like in bombay , we will again find in Kolkata that the slum dewellers are unable to give the maintainence charge, selling their flats and moving to a different slum.
2. Have we started the feasibility study for LRT?
3. IS E-W Metro sticking to Central route or moving via Esplanade?
TOI Report - City-wide Metro network may start operating by 2015 (Yes, link works! composing a bit tricky though for)
Delete"For this financial year, the railways have allocated Rs 750 crore for Joka-BBD Bag metro, Rs 1050 crore for Noapara-Barasat via Airport and Rs 1050 crore for New Garia-Airport. This is the highest ever allocation for any railway project in a metropolitan by the railways, said a senior Metro Railway official."