Centre offers incentive for better housing

New Delhi: Keeping in mind the targets for better housing, the Union government has offered tax and non-tax incentives to promote investments in urban infrastructure and housing sectors, besides increasing Plan outlay in the Budget 2014-15.

Union Urban development and housing minister M. Venkaiah Naidu has directed senior officials of the two ministries to initiate action immediately for operationalising new initiatives after the presentation of the Budget.

Acknowledging the imp-ortance of urban development and renewal to meet the growing aspirations of the people for better living, the BJP-led NDA government has increased Plan outlay for urban-related projects by 251.44 per cent in the Budget.

The Plan outlay, which was Rs 6,561.34 crore in the revised estimate for 2013-14, has been hiked to Rs 16,497 crore for the current financial year. Noting that “a neo-middle class is emerging wh-ich has aspiration of better living standards”, the government has provided Rs 7,060 crore for realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of developing 100 smart cities.

According to a senior urban development ministry official, the cities will be developed as satellite towns of large cities and by modernising the existing mid-sized cities. Mr Naidu said that smart cities will accommodate the burgeoning number of people without which the existing cities would soon become unviable.

In order to encourage development of smart cities, requirement of the built-up area for foreign direct investment (FDI) has been reduced from 50,000 square metres to 20,000 square metres and capital requirement from $10 million to $5 million.

To further encourage this activity, such projects committing at least 30 per cent of the total project cost for low-cost affordable housing will be exempted from minimum built-up area and capitalisation requirements, with the condition of a three-year lock-in.