More than 1/3rd 'cheap rental housing' projects in 11 cities yet vacant: Report

By Rajiv Shah*

A new report on a Government of India scheme meant for housing for the poor, floated in May 2020, following the massive migrants crisis that gripped the country, has said 39 per cent of the 93,295 units in the 52 existing projects for providing cheap rental housing, surveyed in India’s 11 cities, are vacant. Called Affordable Rental Housing Complex (ARHC) scheme, meant to provide “formal, affordable and well-located housing to urban poor and migrant workers’ communities”, it was announced as part of the Rs 20 lakh crore Atmanirbhar Bharat relief package by the Modi government.

The Bombay High Court has asked the State government to stop rehabilitation of project affected persons at Mahul
in Mumbai and shift the existing residents to alternative safer accommodation

The report Workers’ Housing Needs and the Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) Scheme, authored by Mukta Naik, Swastik Harish and Shweta (Tambe) Damle, and based on surveys carried out by researchers of the Centre for Policy Research, the Working People’s Charter and the Indian Institute of Human Settlements in Hyderabad, Indore, Bhopal, Mumbai, Nagpur, Nashik, Delhi, Ghaziabad, Guwahati, Mysore, and Bangalore.

Under the ARHC scheme, existing vacant housing under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY), including Basic Services for Urban Poor (BSUP) and Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme (IHSDP) would be “allowed to be repurposed for ARHCs.”

The communities represented in the survey seeking these houses belong overwhelmingly to vulnerable groups - SC, ST or Muslim households. And within these communities, the report says, “There is a significant presence of Women-headed Households (WHH) and Transgender-headed Households (THH) that are often even more vulnerable.”

About 21 per cent and 47 per cent households surveyed identified themselves as short-term and long-term migrants respectively, and 32 per cent as permanent residents. Those surveyed worked as street vendors, waste pickers, daily-wage labour (including in the construction industry, transportation services, such as cycle-rickshaw, auto-rickshaw and e-rickshaw operators), safai karamcharis (cleaning and sanitation services), domestic work and home-based work.

Many of them living in slums, they refused to take advantage of the ARHC scheme because of the failure to furnish identity documents to meet “state-specific eligibility criteria in order to be part of beneficiary lists.” According the report, about 12 per cent of the units are vacant because this issue.

The report further says, “About 19 per cent of the vacancy is attributed to court orders and rulings”, one of the most important ones being the vacant units at Mahul in Mumbai, where the Bombay High Court has asked the State government to stop rehabilitation of project affected persons and shift the existing residents to alternative safer accommodation. “This order was passed on account of evidence that the housing was of poor quality and the area dangerously polluted”, the report adds.

According to the report, 38 per cent of the units remain vacant because “allottees are not willing to move into these houses”, pointing out, the hesitation to move to public housing is “linked with construction quality and access to basic services at the level of the housing project.”

The report says, “A mapping of the projects tells us that many surveyed projects, that remain vacant are indeed located at the periphery of cities.” It explains, “This partly explains why even projects built a decade or more ago remain vacant. For example, in Delhi, the surveyed projects are 18-25 km away from the New Delhi railway station. In Bhopal, they are about 10 kms away. In Mysore and Indore, too, it is clear from the maps that the projects are quite far from the city centre.”

Pointing out that nearly one third of the projects do not have any access to public transport, the report points out, of those households who have not opted for the scheme, nearly 85 per cent currently travel “less than 5 km to commute to their workplace.”

According to the report, “Construction quality is a serious issue in public housing projects. About 39 per cent of the units are poorly constructed and another 37 per cent have issues related to breakage and seepage. In terms of architectural design, while about 66 per cent of the surveyed units reported that all rooms in the unit receive adequate natural lighting, 35 per cent of the units reported only a 10 feet distance from the adjacent building.

Further, while about 92 per cent, of the units have access to adequate piped supply of water, the situation, the report maintains, “is not so rosy with sewerage and solid waste management. While 69 per cent have piped sewerage with a functional treatment plant, 22 per cent have no functional sewerage at all and open dumping is reported as the current practice.”

“Similarly, 34 per cent and 30 per cent units experienced regular and irregular collection of solid waste by the municipality respectively; while 18 per cent had no functional municipal system and a private fee-based system instead.” And, “A little less than half of the sample experiences frequent drainage and flooding issues and another 23 per cent experience drainage failures occasionally.”

The report maintains, “About 15 per cent of the units cannot be accessed by a fire-truck, either because of narrow access roads or because of obstructions and blockages on access roads. Nearly half the sample report little or no access to parks, open playgrounds, and public spaces. Moreover, the majority of households depend on small shops and are impacted by the absence of markets in the vicinity of the project.”

“The guidelines do not reflect a granular understanding of links between migration and urban poverty, and do not have explicit provisions to ensure the coverage of vulnerable migrant populations,” reads the report, adding, “These concerns are exacerbated because the ARHC envisages a private sector player, the concessionaire, as the key actor involved in refurbishing, allocating and maintaining rental housing units.”

According to the report, “The incentives for the concessionaire are clearly the expectation of retrieving investments and turning profit in a 25-year-period. How will concessionaires address the trade-offs between vulnerability and affordability in a profit-oriented delivery model? This is unclear and unaddressed at this time.”

* The writer is Editor of Counterview. A version of this article first appeared here.

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