Housing relief for migrant workers; thousands of PMAY houses ready to move-in: Piyush Goyal

 The union cabinet gave its approval for developing Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (AHRCs) for urban migrants and poor.

After the union cabinet allowed migrant workers to rent affordable houses built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal’s office today said in a tweet that 70,000 govt-funded houses are ready to be let out to the migrants. In the first phase of the Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) scheme, the PMAY houses in the states of Maharashtra, Delhi, and Telangana are ready to move-in. Earlier this week, the union cabinet gave its approval for developing Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (AHRCs) for urban migrants and poor as a sub-scheme under Pradhan MantriAwasYojana – Urban (PMAY – U).

The cabinet had said that the existing vacant government-funded housing complexes will be converted into ARHCs through concession agreements for 25 years and the concessionaire will make the complexes livable by repair, retrofit, and maintenance of rooms. It had added that the concessionaire will also fill infrastructure gaps like water, sewer, sanitation, road, etc. While the concessionaire has to be selected by states and union territories through transparent bidding, the complexes will revert to urban local bodies after 25 years to restart the next cycle like earlier or run on their own.

Special incentives including 50% additional FAR/FSI, concessional loan at priority sector lending rate, tax reliefs at par with affordable housing, etc, have also been announced for the private or public entities to develop ARHCs on their own available vacant land for 25 years. The government has made this move by considering the massive reverse migration of workers and urban poor in the country who come from rural areas or small towns for seeking better employment opportunities in urban areas. The government underlined that migrants live in slums, unauthorised colonies or peri-urban areas to save rental charges.

Watch: News with Financial Express July 10, 2020

Meanwhile, a large section of the workforce in manufacturing, services, and other sectors who come from rural areas will be the target beneficiary under ARHCs. The cabinet highlighted that ARHCs will create a new ecosystem in urban areas making housing available at affordable rent close to the place of work while investment under ARHCs is expected to create new job opportunities.