Aiming at solving the housing crisis, a real estate development and promotion council on Saturday sought creation of special residential zones (SRZ) across the country for construction of affordable houses.
The SRZ can come up in 500 acres of land and a housing unit should be constructed in a minimum of 1,000 sq Et area, Rohtas Goel, president of National Real Estate Development Council (Naredco) told reporters here today. Highlighting the gap between the demand and supply in housing sector, Goel said despite a boom in real estate and easy availability of finance, affordable housing has remained a distant dream for economically weaker section, low and middle income group of people.
There is a shortage of around 25 million houses mainly for low income groups in the country.
The crisis can be effectively addressed by creating SRZ through the partnership between government and real estate developers to construct as many affordable houses, Goel said adding escalating prices of land and construction materials have worsened the situation.
About the government's role in the SRZ, Goel said while land acquisition will be government's responsibility, construction will be ours".
Advocating the simplification of the land acquisition procedures, he suggested single window clearance system to reduce time for project sanctions and unified approach by developers and government to reduce comple- tion time.
Source: Hindustan Times, 20-April, 2008
