Maken's plea to RBI to revamp affordable housing loans

Ajay Maken, the Union Minister of Housing and Poverty Alleviation has made an appeal to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for restructuring of loans for affordable housing in case the project is delayed due to extraneous reasons beyond the control of the developer. The Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram has also joined Maken to make the appeal to the RBI.

Ajay Maken said this on the sidelines of the international conference on ‘Governance of Megacity Regions’ organised by CII and Centre for Policy Research. Currently, if the Environment Department doesn’t give clearance in time or plans do not get sanctioned in time, banks don’t allow restructuring of loans for affordable housing projects. So, the Union Housing Ministry along with the Finance Ministry have written to the RBI for allowing affordable housing loans to be restructured if the loan payback gets delayed due to reasons outside the control of the developer.

Maken had recently made a pitch for granting of infrastructure status to affordable housing segment and also asked for a need to review the FSI (Floor Space Index) norms in Mumbai to encourage affordable housing projects in the city. On the fate of the Real Estate Regulation Bill, the Housing Minister said that he would push for its passage in the upcoming Budget session of Parliament to address the need of bringing much needed transparency into the sector.