In the annual budget declared for this fiscal, Rs 30,170.61 crore has been allotted to the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) Urban,a 36.5 per cent higher provision compared to the expenditure incurred in the previous fiscal. These provisions aim to incur a spending of Rs 2.2 lakh crore in the next five years. In her budget speech, the Finance Minister had stated: “Under the PM Awas Yojana 2.0, ho using needs of 1 crore urban poor and middle class families will be addressed with an investment of Rs 1 lakh crore. This will include central assistance of Rs 2.2 lakh crore in the next five years.

A provision of interest subsidy to facilitate loans at affordable rates is also envisaged.” Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) 1.0 was initiated in June 2015 with the aim of providing pucca houses to the urban poor by 2022. The scheme intended to enable households with income ranging from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 18 lakh (EWS, LIG, MIG I and MIG II respectively), who had no dwelling houses in their names to afford ho use ownership through four verticals. These four verticals were Beneficiary-led construction (BLC), in-situ Slum Development (ISSD), Affordable Housing projects with private participation (AHP) and the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS), which subsidized the interest payment amount so as to encourage soft financing, primarily intended to facilitate house ownership of the low and middle income group households.

Recent reports from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) reveal that vertical wise, construction of 25,04,220 houses have been completed under CLSS; 4,97,793 houses have been completed under the initiative of ISSD; 8,08,604 houses have been completed in the category of private public participation led AHP and 40,41,596 houses have been constructed by beneficiaries themselves as part of the BLC. In FY 23, Rs 28,652.74 crore had been spent towards this scheme. A review of the performance of PMAY (Urban) 1.0 reports that the construction of about 40 lakh houses in the beneficiary-led construction has been the premier performer, demonstrating thereby that property rights are a prime trigger in providing housing to the low and middle income groups.

Based on these revelations, it would be of interest to discuss what could be the policy parameters to ensure desired outcomes of PMAY (Urban) 2.0. The primary challenges in providing affordable housing for the urban poor and middle class are the limited supply of urban land and rights on urban land, high levels of construction costs, need of proximity and connectivity to core city areas, lack of supporting infrastructure and the rising pressure of the migrant population. The foremost emphasis should hence be on comprehensive urban planning. This becomes vital as the proportion of the urban population, rising from 27.8 per cent in 2001 is estimated to constitute 89 per cent in 2051.

In addition to the original residents of urban areas, migrants from rural and peri-urban areas arriving in urban areas in search of education and employment, would constitute a sizable proportion of the rising population. As land rights on urban land are limited, recourse to beneficiary-led construction, although the best performing of the verticals facilitated by soft housing finance, would, at some point of time, become saturated as land ownership dries up and construction reaches the permissible limits of incremental housing. Hence, policy makers would need to seek land for residential purposes, which is only possible through land use planning.

A 2007 initiative of the government on Urban Land Use planning had indicated that “Land markets are to be made efficient, equitable, environmentally sound and sustainable, to address market imperfections, inequitable land distribution, undesirable land prices, stakeholder interests and government interventions.” The guidelines, inter alia, recommended assessment of the land market through latest information on the operation of the land market in terms of prices, supply of serviced land and public projects to be undertaken by the urban local bodies.

While emphasizing on the need to prepare and adhere to Master Plans, the guidelines had rightly called for provisions of EWS/ LIG housing and for upgradation and relocation of slums. Following this, the 2015 Urban and Regional Plan Formulation guidelines disclosed proposed land use for urban centres where in the percentage of developed area for residential purposes in small, medium and large towns and metros have been identified as 45 to 50 per cent, 43 to 48 per cent, 36 to 39 per cent and 36 to 38 per cent respectively. Hence, city planners would do well to ensure regular publication of Master Plans and City plans with land use zoning as well as periodic disclosure of building regulations.

These attempts, would, in a large way, provide city-wise information on the quantum of land available for residential purposes, especially for construction of mass housing, whether with private partnership or as a relocation strategy towards slum rehabilitation. Such information would also guide policy makers to conceptualize satellite townships with seamless connectivity to the core city areas, facilitating dispersal and environmentally sustainable living. It is in this backdrop that Artificial Intelligence could have a vital role to play. Data analysis arising from such information, with the help of AI, would assist in promoting access to housing in emerging markets. This will facilitate identifying areas with high demand for residential complexes so as to guide development of new building projects as well as enable policy makers and urban authorities to make informed decisions on allocation of resources for subsidized housing.

The second policy measure to help in decongestion and overcrowding in big cities is deurbanization. De-urbanization as evidenced post the Covid-19 pandemic had leveraged remote work as a technology-enabled solution to affordable housing. Transition to work from home not only reduces transport costs but also enables households to live away from big cities with high costs of living. Such digital transformation of the work force allows employees to live away from their place of work without the need to commute daily and also to live in houses that they can afford with more space, better living conditions and provides an escape from overcrowding. The third solution to affordable mass housing/individual housing lies in access to appropriate technology which helps in reducing construction costs as well as to construct houses faster than with conventional building materials.

Pre-fabrication, whether modular, panel-built or manufactured, offers a swift and economical alternative. Manufacturing building materials off site and assembling them at location is a cost-efficient appro ach. The innovation of 3D printing has the potential to revolutionize the construction industry by enabling rapid, waste-minimizing production of building components. Apart from these, technologies using local raw materials such as interlocking and compressed earth blocks as used in India, thermal insulating technology as used in Malaysia, lightweight steel framing as adopted in Iran or bamboo-reinforced wall panel, as experimented in India can largely contribute to low cost housing construction. Artificial Intelligence can also assist through Building Infrastructure Modelling (BIM) and simulation tools to design low-cost, energy-efficient and climate-resilient houses with locally available materials. The fourth policy pillar, relevant for Slum rehabilitation and Affordable Housing projects is to explore the concept of mixed community housing.

The largely successful evidence is from Singapore in their nearly universal state-subsidized housing using different apartment sizes to foster income mix, and, in ensuring that mixed communities are well maintained and regularly updated as smart and sustainable business practic – es. Mixed communities, as found by Levin et al (2022), [Journal of Urban Affairs vol 49, vol 3], benefit from quality public amenities. Such an inclusive policy would also ensure that “no neighbourhood is left behind.” There are many global best practices demonstrating diverse models of successful Affordable Housing projects. Illustratively, the Savonnerie Heymans project at Brussels, Belgium had utilized the existing architecture and infrastructure of a former factory premise towards their housing project. In Iquique, Chile, the project adopted a policy of incremental housing wherein the residential units, although built with toilets and kitchens, allowed the rehabilitated informal settlers to modify the units as per their requirements.

The Harvest Common project at Chicago built an Affordable Housing project out of a former hotel, largely preserving the hotel architecture. In Fuyang, China, vulnerable village community households were settled in the provincial hinterlands as part of an Affordable housing project. The Mirador housing project in Madrid, Spain is a vertical collection of mini neighborhoods. The Poljane community housing project at Maribor, Slovenia, created large community spaces in the form of roof gardens. These examples demonstrate the need of creative designing and architecture to address the limitations of urban space. The fifth policy decision, as announced in this Budget, involves enabling policies and regulations for efficient and transparent rental housing with industrial houses being invited to work in PPP mode to build rental housing for their workers.

For migrants and stu dents/employees with dynamic locations, rental housing is the optimal solution. With low rentals and rising litigation, however, landlords are wary of letting out their premises. Many rental housing also has restrictive entry parameters for single tenants, food preferences and pets which lead to entry barriers. The recommendations of the National Housing policy 2015, the Tenancy Protection Act 2021 and the recent initiative of the Affordable rental housing complex policy are yet to be implemented by all states. These provisions deserve serious attention to address the needs of the burgeoning urban population failing which there would be serious implications on the housing needs of the migrant population.

To sum up, comprehensive urban land use planning, regular publication of master plans and city plans, updated building regulations, regular dissemination of AI-analyzed data, decongestion and de-urbanization, satellite townships with connectivity, use of local raw materials and AI-supported cost effective technologies, sustaining mixed communities in housing projects, access to soft housing finance and promotion of rental housing could go a long way to ensure quality living conditions for urban India.

NANDITA CHATTERJEE The writer is an International Advisor to the UN SecretaryGeneral and former Secretary to the Government of India