ISSN: 2319-7293
Ar. Bhavna Shrivastava
This paper aims to develop a conceptual framework within which housing and basic infrastructure services for all can be delivered in urban India. Public–private partnership (PPP) is the most prominent urban housing policy that has emerged in the last decade in India. Housing reforms in Kolkata, under the flagship of PPP has taken the city into a different league after decades of ineffective housing policy. Despite high and sustained GDP growth rates over the past two decades, the vast majority of Indians continue to live in substandard housing with few basic amenities or pay disproportionately high portions of their income for formal housing and services like water. The framework developed here stresses integration – an alignment of the economic, legal, planning, financial systems and a clear mapping of requirements – tenure mix, associated infrastructure in order to ensure targeted and productive investment. Above all it highlights that housing cannot be thought of in isolation but must be provided along with infrastructure – physical and social. Against the elements highlighted in the framework, the paper evaluates the current issues and challenges in the Indian urban housing market and makes recommendations for tools and approaches that can guide movement towards a more holistic approach. This paper investigates the dynamics of PPP policy in Kolkata, where public housing agencies have assumed both facilitator and regulator roles within a socialist institutional setting to achieve a balance between market forces and the needs of the low-income people.