In what could give a fillip to the affordable housing sector in Ahmedabad, DBS Affordable Home Strategy Ltd., in association with SAATH, an Ahmedabad-based non-government organisation, is set to launch a 3,800 residential housing project in the Rs 4-10 lakh bracket.
To be launched under the brand name, 'Umang Vinzhol', the units will come up in phased manner on the outskirts of the city. According to BR Balachandran, executive director, DBS Affordable Home Strategy Ltd., the project will entail a turnover of Rs 250 crore in the near future.
"We are conducting a feasibilty study on the project. However, we have been able to successfully book all of 792 units in our earlier project," said Balachandran.
Earlier, DBS and SAATH have launched similar project 'Umang Lambha' with non-government organisation (NGO) Ashoka Foundation. Part of Ashoka Foundation's Housing For All (HFA) program, the project saw around 792 affordable residential units being offered to end users.
"We intended to offer units for people who do not have a salary slip or statement and find it difficult to avail loans. But for this, we needed support of a developer with land accessibility and an organisation that could aggregate the end users. Which is why we tied up with DBS and SAATH for offering affordable housing," said Vishnu Swaminathan, director, Housing for All, Ashoka Foundation.
While Ashoka Foundation facilitates co-ordination between NGOs and developers, SAATH helps identify and assess authenticity of end users. "There is a possibility of rich people benefiting out of such projects. Hence, it becomes important for the project to have someone assess and aggregate end users who have real housing needs," Swaminathan added. On its part, DBS acts as the developer who is responsible for availability of land and design of residential units.
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Under the Housing For All initiative the 'Umang Lambha' project was launched in May 2010. The project was developed through a unique partnership with DBS Affordable Home Strategy Ltd, a for-profit developer, and SAATH Charitable Trust, a non-profit organisation.
Together with architects and home financiers, the DBS Umang Lambha project in Ahmedabad has conclusively demonstrated that this HVC business model has overcome the barriers that often have hindered collaboration in the past, and has leveraged the unique resources of all those entities and experts necessary to offer affordable houses to all those families now living in unhealthy and unsafe conditions in slums.
Under the Ashoka's HFA program, over 10,000 homes are being planned and under construction in six cities including Ahmedabad and Pune, unlocking a market potential of Rs 400 crore.
These partnerships between developers and materials suppliers, not-profit citizen organisations, architects and housing finance companies will provide in the short term the opportunity for over 50,000 people to live in better housing conditions.