Review FSI policy to increase affordable hsg in Mum: Centre

Mumbai: The city's skyline may have more skyscrapers in future if the state authorities consider the central government's recommendation to review theFSI policy for Mumbai to meet the affordable housing demand. The recommendation came on Monday. 
    Union housing minister Ajay Maken said megacities like Mumbai needed to review the FSI (floor space index) policy to encourage more affordable housing. He said affordable housing should now be accorded the status of basic infrastructure to facilitate more stock of affordable houses for the urban populace. He was addressing a meet on 'Challenges in Megacity Governance', organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi. CII president Adi Godrej presided over the inaugural session. 
    Maken said, "About 50% of population in Mumbai stay in slums. In cities like Delhi, about 84% homeless people are selfemployed and contribute towards the economic growth. Since they live close to their workplaces, irrespective of the location categories, we need to create affordable housing even at premium locations of megacities. It is required to bring these service providers nearer to consumers." 
    He added, "There is a need to make appropriate changes in the FSI policy to boost affordable housing in Mumbai. The state is the responsible authority to do so and, in our opinion, it should consider this option." 
    About the initiatives at the central level, Maken said the policy for providing 'Infrastructure Status' to affordable housing schemes is on the cards to improve the urban housing scenario. "This can be treated as a sub-sector of real estate and at least, this sub-sector can be given the infrastructure status," he added. 
    Earlier, inaugurating the programme, Adi Godrej said, "India has witnessed rapid urbanization in the last two decades which is going to increase over the period of time. India will need $800 billion in the coming years towards urban development and out of which $350 billion will go towards building urban roads alone. Administrative reforms, urban service delivery reforms and many such initiatives are the need of the hour." 
    In his remarks, K C Sivaramkrishnan, 
Chairman, Centre for Policy Research, said, "Urbanization has become social, political and economic reality. Megacities contribute about 14 to 36% of the GDP to their respective states. The urban centres have also become very critical in deciding the political leadership at the State and Central levels." 
'Policy soon for slums on central plots' U nion minister Ajay Maken, who met CM Prithviraj Chavan on Monday, said his ministry will soon table a proposal for the rehabilitation of slums located on central government plots. With a sizeable percentage of the city's shanties situated on such land, the state has been pushing for a redevelopment policy for them. 
    Chavan demanded a separate policy framework under the Rajeev Awas Yojana (RAY) for the state, arguing that the existing guidelines were not sustainable in Mumbai, Thane and Pune. Maken reportedly said a separate policy framework will be difficult. The state will have to bear additional financial burden to push affordable housing schemes. The housing ministry has rejected a demand for extra grants for construction of tenements under the Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programmes and Basic Services for the Urban Poor. The state drew flak for shoddy implementation of these schemes. TNN