HOUSING POLICY IN INDIA

Introduction
This chapter deals with the public policy on rural housing in India and the plan
wise allocation of funds towards rural housing schemes. It also analyses housing policy
in India since Independence. It explains the importance of the National Housing Policy
and critiques Policy and discusses the role of the rural housing finance agencies involved
catering to the need for housing finance.
The Indian constitution lays down that "the state shall strive to promote the
welfare of the people, protecting as effectively as it may a social order in which justice,
social, economic and political. It is on these basic principles that India continues to strive
to provide its people basic socio-economic necessities such as food, clothing, shelter and
so on".

The subject of housing, however, is not specifically mentioned in the seventh

schedule of the constitution of India, which deals with matters coming within the purview
of the union and state legislatures. As far as housing for industrial labour is concerned,
item 24 of list III may be said to cover because it, dealing, as the item does,
comprehensively with the welfare of labour. That would bring into the issue the
concurrent list which both the union and the state governments are concerned with. The
residual powers in relation to subjects not mentioned in the concurrent list or state list.
These vest in the Union parliament. Thus the centre may be said to be directly concerned
with the subject of housing in general. In view of the gravity and vastness of the problem
and the financial conditions of the states, the central government has to accept a large
measure of responsibility for financing programmes in the urban centres, where
congestion and shortage of housing have become very acute in recent years. Provision
should also be made to find funds for middle-class housing schemes through building cooperative
societies. However, it has been suggested that state governments, which are being relieved toalarge
extent of the responsibility for industrial housing,should concentrate on a melio rating poor conditions
of housing in
rural areas