Addressing housing shortage by resolving supply side constrains: A case of Bhubaneswar

Abstract

With rapid urbanization, heavy migration is taking place from rural to urban areas adding more load on it and absence of inclusive housing planning creates limited access to housing and basic infrastructure. Due to lack of housing supply, a mismatch between the requirement and supply has come into play. However, maximum share of housing shortage lies in the economically weaker section (EWS) and lower income group (LIG) who actually need affordable housing within appropriate price bracket. Several policies and schemes have been implemented by state and central level. but housing shortage still remains the same. The shortage in these segments has emerged as a result of two kinds of constraints termed as supply and demand side constraints. The inability to afford the cost of housing, Inaccessibility to finance system and improper beneficiary selection are included in the demand side constraints where as unavailability of urban land, escalated construction cost, inappropriate regulatory framework and insufficient infrastructure provision etc are part of supply side constrains. In this research an attempt has been taken to resolve the housing shortage taking into consideration the important supply side constraints which are land shortage, improper regulatory framework and infrastructure provision. Bhubaneswar has an area of 419 sq km with 14 number of planning units and three municipality corporations. It is a growing city and the emerging economic platforms are basically IT sector and Educational institutes. The housing requirement and supply analysis is done for all zones which has resulted in a very diversified kind of intervention in context of spatial planning and policy level intervention. The research recommendations given are reforms in regulatory framework, permit process and conversion process, availing urban land for housing, providing proper basic, physical and social infrastructure to the existing and upcoming housing market.