Union housing minister Ajay Maken said that the FSI policy in Mumbai must be reviewed. He said that only by revising the FSI policy is necessary for developing affordable houses.

FSI policy in Mumbai likely to be reviewed.

Union housing minister Mr. Ajay Maken said that the FSI policy in Mumbai as well as in all the mega cities of India must be reviewed. He added that the builders will be able to develop more affordable houses, if the Floor Space Index is raised.

There is a possibility for all the major cities of India to have taller skyscrapers in future. If the FSI policy is revised and the FSI rate is raised, then the mega cities like Mumbai and Bangalore will have taller residential development. In fact vertical development is comparatively less costly and so the buyers may be able to get homes at affordable rates.

Mr. Maken has recommended all the Development Authorities of the mega cities to review their FSI Policy. He opined that it was quite necessary to meet the affordable housing demand. Raising of the FSI will encourage construction of more affordable housing units.

Ajay Maken recommends review of FSI policy in Mumbai.

To meet the demand for affordable housing units by the urban population, the affordable housing segment should be given infrastructure status, the housing minister commented while addressing ‘Challenges in mega city governance’, a meeting organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) along with Centre for Policy Research (CPR), New Delhi. Mr. Adi Godrej, president of CII, presided the meeting.

Mr. Maken said that a half of the population in Mumbai is slum-dwellers. The situation in any other mega cities like Delhi is not much different, he added. So there should be an increase in the number of affordable housing units to meet the demand. He urged the builders to develop affordable houses even at prime locations of metropolitan.

On the occasion he stated that it is the responsibility of the state governments to decide on the FSI policy of the state. Stating that there exists a necessity of reviewing FSI policy in Mumbai, he expressed that the concerned authority will look into the matter.

Apart from the raising of FSI in Mumbai and other mega cities  the Center plans to confer infrastructure status on affordable housing segment. Mr. Maken added that the union government will try to provide infrastructure status at least for the affordable housing segment which is a sub-sector of real estate.