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Residents look to courts for protection, even as political parties seek votes on environmental issues

Sat, 27 Apr 2019 05:31:42 +0000

In this election season, political parties wooing voters have included environmental promises in their manifestoes. Yet, many residents of Delhi are looking to the courts to protect them from government decisions that will worsen living conditions in the city.

East Kidwai Nagar concept art

The matter regarding the newly constructed East Kidwai Nagar government housing complex and the redevelopment of seven housing colonies in South Delhi (Nauroji Nagar, Netaji Nagar, Sarojini Nagar, Thyagraj Nagar, Kasturba Nagar, Srinivaspuri and Mohammadpur) is pending before the Delhi High Court. In a city where residents suffer from the effects of year-round air pollution, large-scale deforestation and tree felling, and a water crisis, and where social housing is in such short supply, the decisions on these projects seem more critical than pre-election assurances.

Government-backed projects
The East Kidwai Nagar (EKN) project is a gated office-cum-housing complex located between Sarojini Nagar and South Extension. It was designed during the time of the Congress government in 2007 and construction started in 2014. While the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) calls this its flagship project, it has been stalled by the court for it faulty design and incomplete impact assessments on traffic, water and dust pollution. The National Green Tribunal fined the project for non-compliance of legal safeguards. Since August last year, the Delhi high court has held up handing over the possession of flats due to unresolved issues.

If the EKN project covering 85 acres of public land exemplifies several wrongs of urban planning, the proposed “redevelopment” of the seven government housing colonies (7GRPA) to turn them into prime commercial property and housing is land grab. The area involved is 571 acres. The ministry has contracted the construction of three of the seven colonies: Netaji, Nauroji and Sarojini Nagar, to NBCC despite its poor delivery of the EKN project. The contract is full of generous, open-ended clauses that allow NBCC to generate windfall profits while the environmental and social costs of the project are externalised to the public.

Violations of court orders
These construction projects backed by the government show no intent to follow the rule book. The 7GRPA was declared by MoHUA as one project in July 2016, to maximise the land use provisions of the Delhi Master Plan. However, it pursued seven separate environmental approvals to avoid declaring its total cumulative impacts on public infrastructure and the ecology. It is due to this deliberate ploy that the NBCC earned the government’s approval to build a 100% commercial world trade centre in Nauroji Nagar, a residential area as per the MPD.

In a case hearing in October 2018, the Delhi high court allowed NBCC to proceed “in accordance with law” and seek fresh approval for six of the seven projects, while it continues to hear the matter related to Nauroji Nagar, whose construction it stayed. The projects have sought fresh environmental approvals for a second time between November 2018 and March this year. This time too, the project proponents seeking approvals have not disclosed the integrated nature of this project in their revised proposals. The projects have failed to declare their cumulative impacts in Form 1 of their applications seeking approval.

The environment ministry’s Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) for infrastructure has given a go ahead to the Netaji and Sarojini Nagar sites, based on “new” environment impact assessments (EIAs) that use old and incorrect data that are under question in the high court. These are all violations of the provisions of the EIA notification, 2006. The issues related to water availability, the need for additional government housing and the additional load on traffic that were raised by the Delhi high court back in June 2018 remain sidelined in the new studies.

The court ordered no work to be carried out in all the seven sites. Yet, NBCC has continued to demolish houses in the said colonies. Dumping demolition waste has destroyed standing trees in several sites and the management of these areas has suffered since residents have been made to leave. Erstwhile residents have shared pictures of dead or dying animals and of fallen trees in these empty colonies. These have been brought to the notice of the police and NBCC . Contempt petitions have been filed in court, which are yet to be heard.

Politics in place of regulation
Although trees have been felled and damaged by these project operations, the people of Delhi concerned with this loss of ecology have no local institutions to turn to.

Two crucial regulatory bodies that could have studied the impacts of these projects on Delhi are the State Environmental Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) and the Delhi Tree Authority. While the first is mandated to support the local government to take decisions on infrastructure projects based on their impact assessments, the second is empowered to undertake critical studies to assess impacts, carry out tree censuses and oversee efforts to compensate the loss of trees in the city.

In SEIAA has been non-operational for more than a year. These projects should have been placed before the Delhi SEIAA, which includes members of the Delhi government. But due to its absence, the 7GPRA was vetted by the EAC under the Central government. Since the 7GPRA is essentially a project of the MoHUA, in effect the Centre has approved its own projects. The EAC has pushed these projects twice; once before the court case and again after the October order, where they recommended approval to the projects “subject to the outcome of the pending case in the Delhi High Court”.

The Tree Authority is to be set up under the Delhi Preservation of Tree Act (DPTA) of 1994. Since it has been missing for the last few years, Delhi’s ecology is basically without any regulatory oversight. While the AAP government in Delhi has continually complained about the lack of full control over the governance of Delhi, in these matters where it can set up safeguard mechanisms to regulate high impact projects, it is yet to do so.

Issues at stake
Both EKN and 7GPRA are at a crucial stage of arguments. The courts will examine specific violations and problems of these projects and will hear the government on why it seeks to regularise these projects with legal violations, poor urban planning and serious environmental consequences.

Even as the court questions the fundamental assumptions behind these projects, “redevelopment” is being pursued by the Central government on a nationwide scale across many cities. In Delhi, more such projects are proposed in Aya Nagar, Mayapuri and Lodhi Colony. The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has recently put out a draft Transit Oriented Development (TOD) policy and regulations that also facilitate large-scale commercialisation and privatisation of public land. The elected Delhi government is proposing a massive tree transplantation policy without acknowledging the need to hold back the felling of its green public infrastructure.

The EKN and 7GPRA projects are useful case studies to understand what elected governments do between elections.
—
*Researchers at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi. A version of this article was first published in The Wire

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Budget fine print: A Rs 2-crore home in Mumbai could qualify for affordable housing subsidies

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 07:45:58 +0000

By defining affordable housing by size rather than cost, has the government defeated the very purpose of the measure?

The Union Budget presented on February 1 has been described as a game-changer for the struggling housing sector, having decreed infrastructure status for the affordable segment. But lost in the scramble of ra-ra reviews is the fact that the definition of affordable has been so stretched that a Rs 2-crore home in Mumbai or a Rs 1.5-crore flat in Bengaluru will now fit this category, allowing hordes of developers to cash in on the subsidies and incentives that come with catering to this segment. It may also be cruel irony for the 20 million families searching for a roof in the country, 95% of whom cannot afford anything that costs more than Rs 10 lakhs.

The housing sector was a focus area for Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s Budget proposals. An entire chapter in the explanatory notes to the Finance Bill 2017, titled Measures for Promoting Affordable Housing and Real Estate Sector, was dedicated to it. The minister enlarged the definition of what is affordable housing by introducing the concept of carpet area (the area enclosed within the walls), overriding the dubious builder definition of built-up area (carpet area plus outer walls, balcony and other common areas). Thus, a carpet area of 30 square meters in the four big metros of New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, and of 60 square meters in smaller cities make for affordable units. And with this, the actual usable area has increased the benchmark by as much as 20% to 50%.

Other Budget proposals included giving developers tax relief on unsold stock as they will now need to pay capital gains (the profit earned from the sale of property) only in the year the project is completed rather than at the start of the project. Also, the holding period for capital gains tax for immovable property has been reduced from three years to two years, and developers can avail of a tax break of one year after receiving the completion certificate for unsold stock.

A tall order

Where is this all coming from? These Budget proposals are undoubtedly a sign of desperation where the government has chewed off more than it can deliver. The country faces an estimated housing shortage of 18 million units, which if not tackled on a war-footing will balloon to about 30 million units by 2030. It was in this context of delivering “development and growth” that Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna on June 25, 2015, promising “housing for all by 2022”. Even on paper, this is a tall order. A target of 20 million homes in six years translates into completing approximately three million units a year.

On the ground, the scheme has been a non-starter. Government data shows that in the first year up to July 15, 2016, just 19,255 housing units were completed. That month, Rao Inderjit Singh, minister of state for housing and urban poverty alleviation, conceded in a reply in Parliament that though 864 projects involving 7.3 lakh homes had been approved, work was in progress in only around one lakh of these, or less than 15% of the approvals. Again to put it in context, the government has to deliver three million (30 lakh) units a year to make good on its promise of housing for all. A far cry indeed.

It is not difficult to see the contours of the problem. Construction of the volume of houses envisaged through sarkari arms such as the Delhi Development Authority or the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority is an impossibility considering the mobilisation capacity of these bodies and the red tape they are trapped in. The solution this Budget has fallen on is to harness the vast array of private developers. But the challenge before Jaitley is how to move a tribe of developers focused on upper-income housing projects to build homes for the poor and the marginalised.

Size over cost

Obviously, last year’s measures did not work. Budget 2016 had allowed 100% deduction for profits to housing projects building homes of up to 30 square meters in the four metros and 60 square meters in other cities. But these were based on built-up area, which aggregates and includes common areas as well in the cost of a flat and are seen as too small a unit by builders.

So, Jaitley this year stretched the definition by introducing the concept of carpet area that makes an affordable home up to 50% larger. However, by defining affordable housing by size rather than a cap on cost, has the government defeated the very purpose of the measure? A 30-square-meter carpet-area home in Mumbai or Delhi, with loading and exemptions, translates into a 500-square-foot one bedroom-hall-kitchen, while a 60-square-meter affordable unit in Bengaluru can be pushed up to a 1,000-square-foot two-bedroom house. At Rs 40,000 a square foot in Mumbai’s Parel area, the affordable unit could be sold at Rs 2 crores; or at Rs 15,000 a square foot, a budget home in Bengaluru could fetch Rs 1.5 crores for the builder.

“When I did the math of the size and value of homes builders can construct and still claim the slew of concessions at a round table after the Budget, I could see the gleam in the eye of several developers who saw a new opportunity,” said Pranay Vakil, founder of realty broking house Knight Frank India and now heading Praron Consultancy.

The incentives

The new, enlarged definition of affordable units will now be eligible for 100% deduction of profits and gains under Section 80-1BA of the Income Tax Act. And to add a sweetener, eligibility for claims under this section has extended the period of completion of these affordable projects from three years to five years.

“Besides the tax-free status, there are several other big concessions builders can avail of under ‘infrastructure’ status,” Vakil explained. “Bank capital will be available at 2% lower interest rates for infrastructure projects, and under this category, banks can advance a larger volume of funds. Builders can also access foreign capital through the external commercial borrowing route,” he added.

The only downside is that these concessions are available for entirely residential projects and builders will not be able to exploit mixed-use potential, as commercial area will be limited to 3% of the project cost. While greater access to cheaper bank and foreign finance will help clean the system, there is, equally, the danger of heavy misuse and of a lot of this affordable stock landing up in the possession of upper-income groups. “Those who want to bend the law can build projects that allow two adjacent flats to be clandestinely merged and sold as one to the same family,” warned Vakil.

Another interesting measure in the Budget proposals is the use of a capital gains concession to make it attractive for land-owning families on urban peripheries to merge and aggregate their farm land (or other lands) as part of development projects. Earlier, in joint venture agreements between landholder and developer, under Section 45 of the Income Tax Act, capital gains was charged in the year the land transfer took place. However, as per a new amendment, capital gains will be charged only at the end of the project, when the completion certificate is issued for the whole or part of the project. This will provide relief to landholders who were forced to pay up on notional gains as partners in a housing project at the start, whereas the bulk of the revenue from sale actually comes in towards the closure of the project. However, this provision is only applicable to individual or Hindu Undivided Family landholders and not corporates or other entities.

Home buyers left out

Significantly, the Budget has very little to offer as direct sops to the home buyer. For instance, it was expected that the maximum deduction of Rs 2 lakhs, when calculating income tax, paid as interest on a home loan of a self-occupied home, and the Rs 1.5-lakh cap on the principal amount paid under Section 80C, would be hiked substantially this year as relief to a populace suffering the pains of demonetisation. This did not come about.
The incentives are clearly loaded on the supply side, and designed to push builders to construct more and cheaper homes. Whether this will come about is yet to be seen.

On the other hand, a concession to the middle class that allowed losses incurred on account of ownership of house property to be set off against income has been substantially trimmed. This was a notional concession wherein a second home owner could load the loss of interest he could have earned from rental income as a deduction from his total earnings. This was an unlimited facility which has now been capped at a maximum deduction of Rs 2 lakhs.

Property experts said the finance minister also passed over an opportunity to correct the impractical provisions in Section 50 of the Income Tax Act, which are stymieing residential sales. Under this provision, inserted in 2003-’04, if the valuation of a property in the sale deed is less than the provisions of the circle rate / ready reckoner (the minimum value at which property can be sold or bought), which determine stamp duty, then for the purpose of capital gain, tax will be calculated at the government-designated rate.

This has become a huge overhang in recent days with property prices having fallen while the government-designated circle rates continue to be hiked to unrealistic levels to garner more revenue. Vakil gave the example of a South Mumbai house that sold for Rs 7 crores but for the computation of capital gain, a ready reckoner rate of Rs 9.1 crores was applied. “This is deterring sales and encouraging stagnation,” he said. “The situation is so ridiculous that when the new buyer wants to sell the flat again, the authorities will not apply the Rs 9.1-crore valuation to the flat but insist on taking the Rs 7-crore value in the instrument of sale.”

This article was first published on Scroll.in

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With Deadline 1 Month Away, UP’s Homes For Urban Poor 73% Incomplete

Mon, 10 Oct 2016 06:10:48 +0000

Although 60% of the money has been released, no more than 27% of 24,310 free homes intended for the urban poor had been built till August 2016 across 53 districts in India’s most-populous state, Uttar Pradesh (UP), according to new data released by the state government.

A man flies a kite on the roof of his house near the Taj Mahal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh. One in four people in UP’s urban areas–or 8.5 million of 34.5 million–lives in a slum, and the state’s cities and towns host India’s highest proportion of homeless people (18.5%).

Apart from the 6,442 homes completed under Aasra (assistance), the state government’s free housing programme for the urban poor, 5,500 homes (23%) have not been started, and 12,248 (50%) are under construction, the data show. All these homes were to be finished by November 2016, according to a right-to-information (RTI) response this writer received from UP’s urban development authority on May 25, 2015.

Source: Programme Implementation Department, Uttar Pradesh

One in four people in UP’s urban areas–or 8.5 million of 34.5 million–lives in a slum, and the state’s cities and towns host India’s highest proportion of homeless people (18.5%).

Until May 2015, no homes had been finished, according to the RTI response, IndiaSpendreported in June 2015. So while the newly completed homes indicate some progress, it is apparent the housing scheme is faltering.

We found that the UP government had got even the data wrong for 10 districts. The figures for houses being built, completed, and yet to be started do not tally with the target of homes to be built. With inconsistencies in data, it becomes difficult to gauge the extent of progress of the project.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi pushes for the construction of two million homes for the urban poor by 2020, the Aasra programme reveals how tardy implementation can stymie government-run housing efforts.

In one Agra housing colony for the poor built under the earlier government’s housing programme, Manyawar Kanshi Ramji Shahari Gareeb Awaas Yojana (MKSGY, or Kanshi Ramji Urban Poor Housing Programme), we found clogged drains, drains, overflowing sewage, broken pipes and floors, dirty septic tanks, broken water-storage tanks and dismayed residents.

60% of budget released, biggest target set in housing minister’s district

Aasra’s budget is Rs 1,370 crore, of which Rs 826.86 crore (60%) has been released; Rs 582 crore has been spent on building homes and related infrastructure.

Although the programme has been officially launched in all of UP’s districts, until August, 15 districts had not been assigned construction targets, although two of these districts had been given money to build homes.

In the eastern district of Sonbhadra, Rs 63 lakh has been spent, but there are no homes under construction or completed, according to the website of UP’s programme implementation department.

Source: Programme Implementation Department, Uttar Pradesh

The highest target (4,402 homes) has been set for the eastern district of Rampur, the constituency of UP’s minister of urban employment and poverty alleviation, Azam Khan, who is in charge of implementing the Aasra programme.

The constituency has also been allocated the largest amount, followed by Mahoba in the southern region of Bundelkhand.

At least 85% of the work has been completed in Ambedkar Nagar and Baharaich, with Basti and Faizabad coming in second at 78%. Barring those districts where work has not yet started, the slowest rate of home-building is in Agra, followed by Kanpur-Suburban.

Although the new scheme was started in 2012-13, replacing MKSGY, the first homes were completed only over the past year.

The Aasra scheme will fall short when compared to MKSGY, started by the previous government, headed by Mayawati, which built 132,700 houses between 2008 and 2010.

Despite the poor quality and infrastructure, homes built under the scheme were sought after by homeless people, IndiaSpend reported in June 2015.

(Chaturvedi is an independent journalist and a blogger at OpinionTandoor.in)

This Article was first published on India Spend

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Nine Residents Arrested for Blocking Sale of Flat to Muslim, Released on Bail

Sun, 18 Sep 2016 06:08:04 +0000

Updated: September 20, 2016

Nine residents of a housing society who recently blocked sale of one of the flats to a Muslim family were arrested by the police on Monday. They were later produced before a local court which ordered their release on bail.

Those arrested were among the 11 members of the Happy Jivan Housing Society in Vasai town near Mumbai who had signed a letter using the society’s letter-head objecting to the sale by one of the society members Kantaben Patel to one Vikarahmed Khan. Among them were the secretary and the treasurer of the housing society.

The 35-year-old building has nine Gujarati families in all. All occupants on the first floor, including the Patels who sold their flat to Khan, were Gujaratis.

Updated: September 18, 2016

At a meeting held yesterday, the 6-member managing committee of the Happy Jivan Society, Vasai, has decided to clear the sale of a flat to a Muslim family. The society's U-turn appears to have been prompted by the FIR filed by the police (see earlier story below). The committee members did not specify when the No-objection certificate (NOC) will be issued to the current flat owners, the Patels. Meanwhile, according to some reports, Vikar Ahmed Khan is now having second thoughts about going ahead with the purchase. "I don't want to stay in a building where the neighbours may not want to talk to me and my family," Khan told The Times of India.

On Sunday, five of the 11 members of Happy Jivan Co-operative Housing Society in Sai Nagar in Vasai town went to Manickpur police station and gave their statements. They said they did not intend to hurt anyone's religious sentiments. Police have not made any arrests yet.

Earlier story:

FIR filed against housing society members blocking sale of flat to Muslim family

Police have filed an FIR against 11 members of a housing society in Vasai town near Mumbai on Saturday for blocking the sale of a flat to a Muslim.

While incidents of Muslims being refused purchase or rent of flats in several parts of the country are nothing new, what is new is the fact of the police promptly lodging an FIR against all the 11 errant members.

The additional superintendent of police, Yogesh Kumar told the media the FIR was lodged at the Manickpur police station following a complaint by a Muslim trader Vikarahmed Khan, who had already signed an agreement and paid a token sum of Rs 1 lakh to flat owner Kantaben Patel (55).

The case has been registered against the society members who signed the letter under Sections 295 A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and 298 (uttering words with deliberate intent to hurt the religious feelings of any person) of the Indian Penal Code. All 11 who signed the letter have been asked to be present at the police station on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the Patels have also complained to the police and the sub-registrar of housing societies against the “high-handedness” of the other society members. Khan had "We decided to sell our flat to Khan as he offered the price we quoted. Now the society is refusing to give an NOC," said Kantaben’s son, Jignesh.

At a meeting of society members held on September 4, it was decided to disallow the sale of her flat by Kantaben to a Muslim. What’s more, they even passed a resolution to keep Muslims out of the housing society. The incident was first reported by The Times of India on Friday.

The society currently has 16 members, including two Muslim families, who have been staying in the 35-year-old building for two decades. The building has a mix of Gujaratis, Maharashtrians, north Indians, Punjabis and Muslims. Gujaratis are in a majority with nine members, including the Patels. The existing Muslim members of the society were reportedly away when the decision was taken.

The September 4 decision came after a letter signed by 11 members of the Happy Jivan Co-operative Housing Society, Vasai, to Kantaben stating: "It is learnt that you intend to sell your flat to some Muslim guy. We feel that you should not do so…" The Patels were advised to sell their flat to "any other person, preferably within our community".

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Housing for All — Do We Have Enough Money?

Mon, 25 Jul 2016 10:11:03 +0000

Housing is a necessity for a decent life. What would basic housing for all mean? Maybe a small house in a village, a second hand motorbike, some farm equipment. Electricity, a toilet with running water. A radio. Maybe it would mean a small apartment in a town or a city, a TV. But three out of four Indians do not own what is in this simple list. Don't we have enough money in India to make this list happen? Or is the money only there for some Indians, always in the pockets of a few?Following two documents are the sources of data for the video:

1. Credit Suisse Global Wealth Data Book, 2014.

2. Credit Suisse Global Wealth Data Book, 2015.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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