Tata Housing - Who'll finance 'affordable' housing in India?
Tata Housing - Who'll finance 'affordable' housing in India? Brotin Banerjee is happy. He has been able to sell a fourth of the 1,500 apartments of his affordable housing project in Boisar, about 100 km from Mumbai, to people who he describes as belonging to the “informal sector”. These are buyers, the managing director of Tata Housing explains, who don’t have a bank account and, therefore, wouldn’t qualify for a bank loan. But thanks to Micro Housing Finance Corporation (MHFC), a microfinance company, they can now hope to own a house. Tata Housing’s efforts at helping less privileged sections of society are commendable, but after a point it won’t be able to do much for the simple reason that there aren’t going to be enough lenders to give loans to these prospective home buyers. So, the shortage of homes in the “economically weaker segments and low-income groups” — estimated by Ernst and Young at some 26 million by 2012 — could be even bigger. Banks are doing their bit but