Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Friday, laid the foundation stone of six Light House Projects as part of Global Housing Technology Challenge – India (GHTC-India) initiative, in six States via video conference.
After laying the foundation stone, Mr. Modi said the country is getting new technology for providing house to the poor and the middle class. The cooperation with States in the Light House projects is in a way strengthening cooperative federalism.
Mr. Modi said Global Housing Technology Challenge provided us the scope of incubating and innovating new technologies for construction.
3D construction system will be used in constructing houses in Ranchi. Technologies from France, Germany and New Zealand are being employed for construction at other sites.
The Prime Minister further said In Chennai, precast concrete technology from US and Finland will be used for construction of houses.
In 12 months, 1000 houses will be constructed at each of the six sites, to be completed before January 26 next year. These construction sites can be learning centres for students from various universities and institutions. They can stay there to learn about new technologies and mould them for use as per domestic requirement.
A certificate course is also being started for study of new house construction technologies, he said.
Mr. Modi said Other schemes have been linked to these light house projects to provide facilities like water supply, electricity and LPG.
Middle class is today getting benefited by the relaxation in home loan interest rates. RERA law has provided protection to them. About 60,000 projects are today registered under RERA and a large number of grievances have been addressed.
Mr. Modi further said A series of steps has been taken to promote the real estate sector, tax on affordable houses has been reduced from 8 to 1% and 13% to 5% GST on usual houses, the sector has been given the status of “infrastructure” to easy availability of credit facilities. In giving construction permits, the country has jumped from 185th to 27th position.
The Prime Minister said During Covid-19 outbreak last year, another major step was taken: affordable central rental housing complex project which aims to address the issues faced by migrant labourers. They are being provided in coordination with investors and industrialists.
Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri said under the PMAY (Urban) scheme there was a demand of 1.12 crore houses from States, 1.09 crore houses have been sanctioned, the construction of 40 lakh houses is complete and they have been handed over to the beneficiaries, while 70 lakh more houses are under construction.
Narendra Modi said “The cooperation with States in the Light House projects is in a way strengthening cooperative federalism.”
