NewsClick

NewsClick
  • हिन्दी
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Covid-19
  • Science
  • Culture
  • India
  • International
  • Sports
  • Articles
  • Videos
search
menu

SUBSCRIBE AND SUPPORT

image/svg+xml
  • All Articles
  • Newsclick Articles
  • All Videos
  • Newsclick Videos
  • हिन्दी
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Science
  • Culture
  • India
  • Sports
  • International
  • Africa
  • Latin America
  • Palestine
  • Nepal
  • Pakistan
  • Sri Lanka
  • US
  • West Asia
About us
Grievance Redressal Mechanism
Newsletter
Facebook - Newsclick Twitter - Newsclick Instagram - Newsclick Youtube - Newsclick RSS - Newsclick
close menu
×
You deserve independent, critical media. Subscribe and Support
Politics
India

ARHC Scheme Falls Short Of Solving Rental Housing Issues

The government's Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) scheme is inadequate in addressing issues faced by the migrant populations in Indian cities.
Tikender Singh Panwar
10 Sep 2021
affordable housing

The transition from the old model towns built during the late 1960s and the new townships developed during the late 1990s (still continuing) is very stark. The old towns were built by adding housing as an inalienable part of the industrialisation-driven urbanisation. The towns built post-1990s have been driven with free market economy principles where the informal sector has catered to housing taking it beyond the reach of the working people.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown in March 2020 exposed the complete hollowness of the urban development strategy. The informal sector workers- mostly migrants- could not stay back in urban centres for even 24 hours and returned to their villages, fearing that they would starve to death in cities.

This reverse migration highlighted the issue of inadequate housing in cities. Post-1990s, the housing models of building condominiums, like the Singaporean style, and allowing the private capital to be a large participant in it has shown how iniquitous this model is.

Rental Housing

A majority of migrant workers, almost 95%, cannot afford to live in such condos. According to the NSSO - 2019, 31 million households in urban India live on rent and a vast majority of these stay in informal arrangements like slums etc.

The government, instead of taking a proactive role in providing housing for the workers, has come out with a scheme called ARHC (Affordable Rental Housing Complexes).

According to the website of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), “The ARHC scheme envisages the creation of a sustainable ecosystem of affordable rental housing that provides migrants and urban poor with dignified living with necessary civic amenities near their place of work”.

There are two modes of delivery envisioned in the ARHC scheme. The first mode involves converting existing government-funded public housing into rental housing by public agencies or in PPP(Public-Private Partnership) model. The central government has directed the state governments to utilise vacant and under-construction houses funded by previous schemes for this component. These schemes include houses constructed under Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP), Integrated Housing and Slum Development Programme(IHDSP), Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) and Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY).

The second mode of delivery envisages that rental housing will be constructed, operated and maintained by public/private actors on their own land. We will have to wait and see how this unfolds.

Once the states sign the MoA (Memorandum of Agreement) with MoHUA, they will then engage agencies who the scheme refers as concessionaires to participate in the scheme. Under Mode 1 of the scheme the select concessionaires, a private/public entity, will repair and retrofit these vacant units, manage them for a period of 25 years and then hand them back to the state/Urban Local Bodies(ULB). The rental amount will be fixed by the state/ULBs. The concessionaires are expected to develop necessary social infrastructure as needed.

According to the MoHUA dashboard under the ARHC scheme, there are nearly 86,065 vacant houses that were constructed under various schemes in the country. To date (since December 2020), out of these only 1,934 have been allotted. The bulk of this allotment has been done by the Chandigarh administration- nearly 88% of the total number-1707.

Instead of addressing the larger housing problem and the ecosystem attached to it, merely the piecemeal approach of converting the already constructed houses into rentals will not help. Why is it that the beneficiaries of the above-mentioned schemes did not occupy these houses?

Here are a few reasons. Firstly, in most cities, these projects are located on the periphery and are poorly connected with other populated areas. Secondly, most of these projects, due to their peripheral locations, have not been connected with basic services like water and sewerage, and public amenities like anganwadis, government schools and health facilities. Thirdly, there is also an aspect of poor design and construction that has been noted in these projects.

A study, recently conducted by a group of activists from the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) and Working People's Charter (WPC) and titled, ‘India Housing Report,’ stated a few more reasons. The study found that the women’s lives were particularly impacted in the transition from inner-city slum housing to peripheral public housing. Not only did they lose opportunities for domestic work available in close proximity they also lost time. Hence, there was has hardly any social mobility witnessed.

Not less than 85% of informal workers travel a distance of less than 5 km as their daily commute to their workplace and spend less than Rs 500. Hence peripheral locations of these houses will once again render them meaningless unless there is a subsidised transport system for the workers.

Likewise, rent affordability is a big issue. The average rent paid across India is nearly Rs 3,324, according to the NSSO survey 2018. The ARHC rent should not be more than this to ensure that these are occupied and sustained. However, the scheme illustrates that it is designed to be financially self-sustaining which implies that rent would be the major component for making it self-sustaining. This will again dissuade the workers from availing such accommodation.

The ARHC scheme which is direly required for the migrant workers in the cities falls short of the desired goals and is embedded in the monetisation framework which may not fetch the desired results.

There must be an active role of the city and state governments taking workers unions and other social groups into consideration. Else it will falter the way most of the flagship programmes of the government have fallen. But that would be more perilous for the migrant population in the cities. 

The writer is the former deputy mayor of Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. The views are personal.

Get the latest reports & analysis with people's perspective on Protests, movements & deep analytical videos, discussions of the current affairs in your Telegram app. Subscribe to NewsClick's Telegram channel & get Real-Time updates on stories, as they get published on our website.
ARHC Scheme
NSSO
Working People's Charter
Centre for PoMinistry of Housing and Urban Affairslicy Research
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission
Related Stories
Healthcare Continues to Remain Inaccessible for Dalits and Adivasis, Says Study

Healthcare Continues to Remain Inaccessible for Dalits and Adivasis, Says Study

TN

TN: Urban Local Body Polls Announced, Need to Focus on Decentralisation

mgnrega

Woes And Lows in Uttar Pradesh: Rural Distress And Government’s Response Through MGNREGA During Covid

Survey of  Centre's Low-Cost Housing Scheme Questions Scale and Planning

Survey of Centre's Low-Cost Housing Scheme Questions Scale and Planning

Beedi factory near Nileshwaram, Kerala

The Alarming Drop in the Female Labour Force Participation in India

Bihar Election

Bihar Elections: The Tragic Face of De-Industrialisation

Stark Reality of Women’s Employment in India: Insights from the Periodic Labour Force Survey

Stark Reality of Women’s Employment in India: Insights from the Periodic Labour Force Survey

Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on poor people in India

Agnipariksha for the Poor in India

India malnutrition

Indians Are Consuming Food Devoid of Pulses and Milk

Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims Among Most Excluded From Public Goods: Report

Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on WhatsAppShare via EmailShare on RedditShare on KindlePrint
Share
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on WhatsAppShare via EmailShare on RedditShare on KindlePrint
Share
You deserve independent, critical media. We want readers like you. Support independent, critical media. Subscribe to Newsclick.

Subscribe and Support


Latest

  • Assam

    Professor Arrested for Emails Criticising Assam Govt, CM

  • du

    DU Students, Teachers Slam Professor’s Arrest Over ‘Shivling’ Comment

  • Why is Ailing Lalu Being Targetted Again; Wrath of Hindutva on Two Dalit Professors

    Why is Ailing Lalu Being Targetted Again; Wrath of Hindutva on Two Dalit Professors

  • TN This Week: Stone Quarry Accident Trapped 6 Workers 300 Ft Deep, 3 Died

    TN This Week: Stone Quarry Accident Trapped 6 Workers 300 Ft Deep, 3 Died

  • Load More
Newsletter
About us
Grievance Redressal Mechanism