Published On : Wed, Feb 10th, 2016

Govt aims to provide affordable housing costing less than Rs 5 lakh: Gadkari

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Nitin GadkariNagpur: If we make houses available at cheap and affordable cost of below Rs 5 lakhs, at least 30 percent people can buy those houses opined Surface Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari while addressing the gathering at Assocham’s ‘Smart City’ Summit.

He added that at a time when only one percent of India’s population can afford a house above Rs 10 lakhs, the state government is not only committed to building Smart Cities but also to offer affordable and cheap houses below Rs 5 lakhs claimed Union Minister Nitin Gadkari. Low cost housing is very important.

Gadkari said that the biggest obstacle in our country is that there are only one percent people who can afford to buy houses costing above Rs 10 lakhs. If we make houses costing below Rs 5 lakh available, 30 percent people can buy these houses.

Road Transport Highways and Shipping Minister Gadkari said at Assocham’s ‘Smart City’ summit. He said apart from focus on building smart cities, providing affordable houses to the poorest of the poor also tops the agenda of the Narendra Modi government. Under one such venture, an experiment has been done in Nagpur to construct a house on steel structure using 70 percent fly ash, which will be inaugurated on February 20.

The construction cost of the building totals to Rs 1000 per square feet. We will be able to provide 450 square feet house in Rs 5 lakh. We are installing solar system in that besides furniture including bed made of fly ash. A subsidy of Rs 1.5 lakh would be given on it.

The cost of the house will be Rs 3.5 lakh and loans will also be available at an interest rate of 7% to 7.5% so that even a poor person can buy the houses. The government will not only make smart cities but is also committed to developing the existing cities as per the modern-day requirements. Ten out of 12 major ports will have smart cities. “Barring Kolkata and Mumbai, smart cities would be developed at our 10 ports,” he said. He also urged the investors to come forward to set up smart cities under PPP (Public Private Partnership), with the government ready to offer land, besides clearances in a transparent manner.