Lenders seek higher priority loans

04 Sep 2023 CW Team

Lenders have approached the banking regulator, advocating for nearly doubling the housing loan amount eligible for priority sector lending.

If approved by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), this proposal could give a significant boost to the housing sector. Currently, a housing loan of Rs3.5 million in a metropolitan city is considered priority sector lending under existing regulations. Banks are required to meet priority sector lending targets.

According to a senior bank executive, the RBI established these limits for bank loans to the housing sector in 2018. The executive added that these limits do not reflect the current real estate prices, which have risen since then. Bankers have suggested that the limit be raised to Rs7.5 million for metropolitan areas and Rs 4.5 million for non-metropolitan areas.

This potential revision could have a positive impact on the housing market, making it more accessible for homebuyers.

Real Estate

05 Dec 2025

RBI Rate Cut Boosts Confidence Across Housing Market

Industry Context and Market DynamicsThe real estate industry has welcomed the RBI’s rate cut as a timely boost to affordability and demand. With home prices having risen steadily across major markets, even a marginal reduction in interest rates meaningfully strengthens purchasing power, especially for first-time and mid-income buyers.Ashish Jerath, President – Sales & Marketing, Smartworld Developers, observes:“The RBI’s 25-basis-point cut, bringing the repo rate down to 5.25%, is a timely boost for the real estate sector. Lower interest rates reduce borrowing costs, enabling homeb..

BMC Resumes Rs 170 Billion Road Works, Targets 80 per cent By Jan 2026

Following the withdrawal of the southwest monsoon in October, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has restarted work on 645 roads—covering 297.49 kilometres—under its large-scale concretisation programme. Data shows that more than 60 per cent of the resumed works are located in the western suburbs. Officials said the civic body aims to complete concretisation on 80 per cent of the roads where fresh work has begun by January 2026. Launched in 2022, the Rs 170 billion project seeks to concretise 700 kilometres of roads across Mumbai. All civil works were halted during the monsoon ..

India Pushes Digital Shift In Urban Land Mapping

The Department of Land Resources (DoLR) under the Ministry of Rural Development has convened a National Symposium on NAKSHA – the National Geospatial Knowledge-based Land Survey of Urban Habitations – to advance India’s transition to modern, technology-driven land mapping. Speaking at the inaugural session, Secretary Manoj Joshi underscored the urgent need to move revenue departments away from outdated, tape-based methods and rough hand-drawn sketches. He stressed that adopting latitude–longitude-based digital mapping and GIS-linked registration systems is essential for economic stabi..