Housing affordability in India: opportunities and key challenges

In the last few years, India has witnessed sustained economic growth. Consequently, large-scale migration from rural areas to urban areas has been witnessed due to industrialization, better job prospects, rising income, and high expectations of the lower and middle-class population. This situation has put tremendous pressure on the urban housing supply and affordability. Like most of other countries, providing affordable housing has remained a major challenge for both the policy makers and developers in India. Despite significant policy changes to incentivize affordable housing schemes to make them more attractive for the investors, various factors have continued to impede housing affordability in the major cities. This paper presents an overview of the affordable housing policies and issues in India. It also highlights the affordable housing strategies and policies adopted by some of the European nations in the last few years. It further examines the potentials of application and uptake of these policies within the Indian context.