City Lights: Housing sector may get infrastructure status

Housing sector may get infrastructure status

With an aim to provide affordable housing for all including economically weaker section, the government is actively considering granting of infrastructure status to the sector in the near future. The matter is being taken up with the finance ministry and Reserve Bank of India and a favourable decision is likely to be announced in the coming Budget session, said a senior official of the housing and urban poverty alleviation ministry. Besides, the ministry is also trying to provide income tax and service tax benefit to the sector, the official said. Infrastructure status will boost the housing sector by providing easy access to funds and consequently increasing the availability of houses. According to a recent report of the technical group on urban housing shortage, in 2012, there was a shortage of 18.78 million units and major shortfall of supply was in the economically weaker section (10.55 million units), followed by lower income group (7.41 million).

DLF-CCI case: COMPAT expresses concern

Expressing concerns over difficulties faced by flat buyers in two DLF projects due to a long-pending anti-competition case, the Competition Appellate Tribunal has said payments made for possession of the apartments would not adversely impact their rights after a final order. "The dispute between the Residents' Welfare Associations in respect of the DLF Park Place and in respect of The Belaire Schemes of DLF has been pending since at least more than two and half years. "It is a common ground that, owing to this dispute, number of persons, who had entered into the agreement of sale with DLF, have not been able to get the possession," the Tribunal said in an order, while disposing of DLF's appeal for an interim stay on CCI's supplementary orders regarding changes in Flat Buyers Agreement. The Tribunal said that the CCI's supplementary orders were anyway non-binding at the current juncture and were rather in the nature of suggestions and therefore the question of granting any interim stay against them did not arise.

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