Planning Policy: Review and Critique

Planning Policy
Review and Critique

By Chhavi Bhatia
Town Planning
B.Arch 4th Year
School of Architecture
Delhi Technical Campus, GGSIPU
1. RAJIV AWAS YOJNA (RAY)
1. Vision of the Act
Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY) envisages a Slum Free India with inclusive and
equitable cities in which every citizen has access to basic civic infrastructure,
social amenities and decent shelter.
2. Mission
Encourage States/Union Territories (UTs) to tackle slums in a definitive

manner, by focusing on:
2.1 Bringing all existing slums, notified or non-notified (including recognised and
identified) within the formal system and enabling them to avail the basic
amenities that is available for the rest of the city/UA.
2.2 Redressing the failures of the formal system that lie behind the creation of
slums by planning for affordable housing stock for the urban poor and
initiating crucial policy changes required for facilitating the same.
3. Objectives
3.1 . Improving and provisioning of housing, basic civic infrastructure and social
amenities in intervened slums.
3.2 Enabling reforms to address some of the causes leading to creation of slums.
3.3 Facilitating a supportive environment for expanding institutional credit

linkages for the urban poor.
3.4 Institutionalizing mechanisms for prevention of slums including creation of

affordable housing stock.
3.5 Strengthening institutional and human resource capacities at the Municipal,

City and State levels through comprehensive capacity building and
strengthening of resource networks.
3.6 Empowering community by ensuring their participation at every stage of

decision making through strengthening and nurturing Slum Dwellers
Association/Federations.
4. Scope of the Act
4.1 RAY is to be implemented in a mission mode and will provide financial

support to States/UTs/Urban Local Bodies (ULBs)/Central Government
Agencies, hereafter called implementing agencies, for providing housing and
improvement of basic civic infrastructure and social amenities in each
selected slums. Rental and transit housing will be admissible under the
scheme. Operation and maintenance (O&M) of assets created under this
scheme will also be eligible for funding.
4.2 RAY will also extend financial support to States for creation of affordable
housing stock through public-private partnership (PPP) under the Affordable
Housing in Partnership (AHP) component of the scheme.
Review and Critique

The proposal to construct a land under the State policy reforms of RAY can
definitely free up some Government land for use in affordable housing
projects.
The slum intervention policy measure attacks the policies of the affordable
housing policy because of small price margin. It also seeks to tackle the
demand side problem. However, the demand side problem is not as
significant. In urban India, it is more a question on affordability than access to
credit.
The state policy reforms of RAY also seek to remove procedural bottlenecks
for only affordable housing projects. However, streamlining the process for
only affordable housing is unlikely to impact the land supply in any significant
way. Procedural bottlenecks must be removed on a systemic basis.
The credit policy under the RAY scheme tackles the issue from the demand
side, which is not as significant a problem in India. Hence, this is not the most
important issue.
RAY tackles this problem to some extent when it proposes easier FAR norms
for developers in its cross-subsidization scheme. While such relaxations do
tackle the problem of low FARs and restrictions on density, it is not the most
efficient solution. The price reduction due to FAR and density relaxations is
offset by the cross-subsidization. Moreover, the FAR relaxations will be
effective when it is across the board for all types of housing projects. While
narrow relaxations do tackle the issue to some extent, significant effects can
be felt only after systemic implementation of this relax.
Affordable Housing by builders does not allow for efficient development of
housing societies but RAY subsidizes housing for those who cannot avail
housing through the formal market.
RAY actively tackles the problem of tenure rights. Assignment of lease rights
will tackle critical problem of dwellers not investing in their living conditions.
This will also reduce frictions in transactions of their properties and increase
liquidity in the housing market.
2. HOUSING FOR ALL 2022
The policies which have been envisaged by the governments over the years have
been some modification of Housing for All 2022 (HFA) policy that has currently
been introduced. The HFA policy envisages providing, according to the Presidents
Speech, every family with a pucca house with water connection, toilet facilities, 24x7
electricity supply and access.
The housing shortage in the country is divided into 4 parts as per the MHUPA report
on HFA 2022:
1. Slum dwellers
2. Urban poor living in non-slum areas
3. Prospective migrants
4. Homeless and destitute
The government policy for slum dweller and urban poor living in non-slum areas
would have to be considered. The policy for slum dwellers is itself divided into 3
parts:
1. Slums on public land
2. Slums on private land
3. Unauthorized colonies as slums
The major points under the strategy for slums on public land are:
In-situ redevelopment or up gradation of the public land on the basis of private
partnership by using land as a resource.
Provision of higher FSI to such lands.
Private party to exploit part of the land with increased FSI for commercial
purpose .
Private party to build part of the land for eligible slum dwellers at free of cost
(cross subsidization) .
GOI and State Governments to share the burden of the viability gap, if any.
The major points under the strategy for slums on private land are:
In-situ redevelopment or upgradation of the slums by the freeing up part of the
land for commercial use with higher FSI to the owner and the shifting the slum
to a lesser area with higher FSI.
Government to provide technical specification and area norms.
The major point under the strategy for slums living in untenable land such as river
bed, forests, drain, high tension line, etc. is to shift such slums to other tenable
areas. The major points under the strategy for slums on unauthorized colonies are:
Regularization of these colonies
Provision and improvement of basic municipal services such as roads,
sanitation, sewerage, water services and electricity in these areas
Improvement of general infrastructure
Review and Critique
This policy tries to leverage the government occupied land in a small way by
utilizing the currently government land occupied by squatters. The policy in a
way tries to free up that land by separating it into 2 parts- one for affordable
housing and the other for commercial purpose. However, it would have been
even better if there would have been a policy clause where the government
bodies which are sitting on vast pieces of unoccupied and unused land were
made to give up their lands or asked why the lands currently vacant or under
suboptimal use should not be taken away for public use / housing
development. There is likely to be considerable resistance from the public
bodies against any such move. Hence, the proposed policy of usage of
occupied government land by slum dwellers in itself can be seen as a first
step to a more radical but necessary measure of making the public bodies
relinquish the unoccupied piece of land, or to put them to optimal use. Lands
available with the government could have been traded for other lands or
directly used in development of affordable housing projects instead of letting it
out into the market. This way while the supply of dwelling units in market will
increase, it will also then be in the affordable housing segment.
The HFA-2022 policy tries to leverage the private land under dispute by
providing higher FSI to the private party and simultaneously providing for
Affordable Housing in the same land. Also, the HFA 2022 aims at regularizing
the unauthorized colonies, provision and improvement of basic municipal
services such as roads, sanitation, sewerage, water services and electricity in
these areas and a general improvement in the infrastructure. However, the
policy is silent on many aspects of property rights/tenure rights of the people
currently living in slums. The policy does not try to resolve the property rights
problems that are one of the primary reasons for poor conditions of the
existing slums.

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Planning Policy

Review and Critique

1. Vision of the Act

Encourage States/Union Territories (UTs) to tackle slums in a definitive

3.3 Facilitating a supportive environment for expanding institutional credit

3.4 Institutionalizing mechanisms for prevention of slums including creation of

3.5 Strengthening institutional and human resource capacities at the Municipal,

3.6 Empowering community by ensuring their participation at every stage of

4. Scope of the Act

4.1 RAY is to be implemented in a mission mode and will provide financial

Review and Critique

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