Searching For A Home

<p>Owning a home that is comfortable and close to work is the dream of every Indian. Unfortunately, it remains a dream for most part of his life. Much of what a middle-class man is worth is assessed in the home he has. It is the subject matter of discussion on daily commutes on the Metro; much like the British discuss the weather. If the lucky ones manage to buy a house by the time they are 45, a new cycle, a new plot begins to see if a small flat can be got for the son-now-reaching-marriageable age. It is an endless struggle. &nbsp;<br><br>Owning a home is essentially an urban problem. For the village or the small town dweller, a functional home has never been an insurmountable problem. Not as big as his richer cousins in cities who have to slave and save for an apartment as the total salary of 30 years of work!<br><br>And things are getting worse. A recent survey by property brokers Jones Lang LaSalle showed that the average size of the already squeezed Mumbai apartment had shrunk by 26 per cent over the last five years. In Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai people had resigned themselves to living in 22 to 24 per cent smaller flats. Isn’t it really a trick played by the builders to make prices seem more affordable?<br><br>It was therefore good, futuristic thinking on the part of the Narendra Modi government to seize on building ‘100 Smart Cities’ and ‘Housing for All by 2022’. It is a situation begging for something to be done. Pent up demand for urban homes is close to 16 million units. The periphery of cities is expanding in a reckless, unplanned manner, while the old, inner portions are crumbling and adding to the misery of the millions. That is why the vision of new, ‘smart’ cities has electrified the nation’s imagination; and everyone is talking of going the ‘smart’ way.<br><br>For finance minister Arun Jaitley, who pulled the ‘100 Smart Cities’ rabbit out of his budget basket last year, the ‘smart’ nomenclature was probably borrowed from his ‘smart’ phone. Actually that is what it is!<br><br>The ‘Smart City’ concept originated in Europe as a technology marvel to give people a seamless, hassle-free life; a city where homes, transportation and communication systems had been synchronised to perfection to growing human needs. It also meant building brand new cities from the first brick.<br><br>In India, no one knows what a ‘smart city’ is. The PM, when he was Gujarat’s chief minister, kicked off the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) on 900 acres of land, near Gandhinagar, as a new-age ‘Smart’ City. But realism has dawned. The wild plans of building spanking, new cities in the middle of a desert at a cost of trillions of dollars has now given way to raising the level of existing Indian cities, providing them with affordable homes, mass, rapid transport systems and drains and water treatment plants.<br><br>Similarly, there is confusion on what is an ‘affordable’ home. Builders describe it as anything less than Rs 50 lakh. In Mumbai, it is difficult to find a hovel for less than a crore. Probably the right definition is anything that stretches from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 20 lakh, depending on how much you earn and where you live.<br>Cities indeed must be beautiful, and with an awesome skyline, but they must also be inclusive. They are the new engines of growth, but they must provide a roof and comfort to the millions who made the roads and built those spanking glass edifices. As the Prime Minister’s Office works overtime to choose the first 20 cities that will go ‘smart’, BW Businessworld brings to you a Collector’s Edition that unravels the government’s plans. Also read the spectrum of housing experts and corporate realtors giving you a critique of where we are going wrong.<br><br>And as Independence Day nears, is there a better celebration than making ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makaan’ a national, fundamental right?<br><br>(This story was published in BW | Businessworld Issue Dated 24-08-2015)</p>