Haryana offers sops to realty sector to boost affordable housing

Pradeep Sharma
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 7

In a bid to boost affordable housing, the Khattar Government has amended the state's Affordable Housing Policy-2013 by doling out major sops to the recession-hit realty sector.

Under the new policy, the builders have been extended major incentives in the matter of project area norms, commercial component and parking area norms.

These incentives are intended to draw the big real estate players into the affordable housing sector which is set to become popular in the post-Covid scenario.

While the minimum area norms for setting up the housing project has been reduced from 5 to 4 acres, the maximum area norms have been extended from 10 acres to 30 acres.

The commercial component has been increased from 4 per cent to 8 per cent of the net planned area.

A notification issued by AK Singh, Principal Secretary, Town and Country Planning Department, said the builders would also be able to provide 0.5 equivalent car space (ECS) to the allottees on chargeable basis(not more than 5% of the flat cost) under the new policy.

The allottees already get 0.5 ECS free under the existing policy which would mean that now the car parking problems of the allottees would be taken care of under new policy.

Meanwhile, the under-construction projects would also be able to avail these benefits with some riders.

BK Sanghi, a real estate expert, opined that the new policy would make the housing in the affordable segment more affordable as the more commercial component in the projects would make go along in keeping the prices competitive."

Moreover, provision of car parking for all allottees would draw more end-users and end users into the affordable segment boosting sales," he asserted.

Policy implications:

*Relaxed area norms to draw big realtors into the affordable housing segment.

*More commercial component to keep prices of apartments competitive.

*Individual car parking to boost sales in the housing projects.