National Urban Housing Fund (NUHF)

The Union Cabinet has come up recently with the National Urban Housing Fund (NUHF). An amount of Rs 60,000 crores has been allocated for the Fund. The Fund is to be managed and controlled by the Building Materials and Technological Promotion Council, which is an autonomous body registered under the Societies Registration Act of 1860 and is under the umbrella of the Ministry of Urban Affairs. The target for creation of this Fund is to build 1.2 crore houses in the urban areas through partial support from the government under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY).

Relationship with other Schemes

This Fund has been created basically to support the other schemes of the government relating to urban housing. Some of such schemes and the current progress under them are:

• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Till date 39.4 lakh houses have been sanctioned under this scheme. Among them, the base has been laid for 17.63 lakh houses and 5 lakh houses have already been constructed. The scheme has within its target around 4300 cities and towns.
• Credit linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS)-Under this scheme, interest subsidies are given to the persons who are from the economically weaker and lower and middle income groups of the society and are beneficiaries of the housing schemes. It is given after the loans by banks and other housing finance institutions are sanctioned to these beneficiaries. Till date about 87,000 housing loans have been given sanction and 40,000 are being considered for final approval.
• Around Rs 1.5 lakh is given to the beneficiaries as financial assistance for constructing the housing units. In case of development of a slum every beneficiary is given Rs 1 lakh.

Significance

It will help in raising the requisite fund for the scheme for at least 4 years and prevent any shortfalls in the budget for this purpose. It will enhance the work towards achieving the target of 1.2 crore affordable houses in the urban units by 2022.