Delhi okays Centre’s rental home plan, wants some flats exempted

After opposing it for two years, the Delhi government has decided to implement the Centre’s Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHC) Scheme, which is aimed at providing housing to migrant urban poor at affordable rentals, according to senior Delhi government officials.

Bipin Rai, member of Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB which is the nodal agency for providing housing to urban poor in the city, said, “For the welfare of people, the Delhi government has agreed to implement the Centre’s ARHC scheme. All we want is that the flats should be allotted to people at the earliest. The Memorandum of Understanding with the Centre will be signed soon. But we have sent our request for exemption of some flats from the scheme.”

Garima Gupta, chief executive officer, DUSIB, said, “The Delhi government has agreed to implement the ARHC scheme, but we have asked the ministry to exempt around 18,000 flats.”

Following large scale reverse migration during Covid pandemic induced lockdown, the Centre launched the ARHCS scheme to provide rental housing to migrant urban poor in 2020. Under the ARHCS scheme, these flats (for which even the Centre has paid) have to be allotted to urban poor on rent. But the Delhi government has been opposing it and wanted these flats to be allotted on a freehold basis, especially in areas where the slum clusters are within a five-km radius of the housing complex. “But the Centre has not permitted it. We can’t allot these flats till we get the Centre’s approval,” said a senior DUSIB official.

It is learnt that Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal has written to the housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri requesting that 18,639 flats, constructed by the Delhi government under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), be exempted from the ARHC scheme.

“We are yet to hear from the ministry whether these 18000 flats will be exempted from the scheme or not,” said a senior Delhi government official.

When contacted, a senior ministry official said, “We have received the request from the Delhi government. It is being examined in consultation with the state government.”

There are close to 30,000 flats which have been constructed under the Upa-era schemes JNNURM and Rajiv Awas Yojana. But a majority of these flats are lying vacant. While the Delhi government initiated the allotment process to 9,000-plus slum residents, it was put on hold after the Centre’s ARHCS scheme was announced in 2020.