High construction cost proves to be an impediment for affordable housing in India
The Global economy has been severely hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, registering a negative growth rate of 3.5 per cent in 2020 (estimates by IF, World Economic Outlook, January 2021). Considering the size of the Indian economy, the overall damage in terms of lost human lives was relatively less due to a timely but long nationwide lockdown implemented by the Indian government. Though the lockdown prevented a huge tragedy in the form of increased count of deaths, it had adverse implications for almost all sectors of the economy. One of the sectors that saw a huge dip during the pandemic period was housing. According to reserve bank of India’s (RBI) data, All India housing price increased by 3.92 per cent y-o-y during Q1 2020, slightly up from 3.6 per cent the previous year. This price rise in the Q1 2020 is reflected in the dip in supply of residential stock. As per PropTiger only 12,564 housing units were launched in Q2 of 2020, an 8.07 per cent fall for the same period of the preced