Housing in India
Encyclopedia
Housing in India varies greatly and reflects the socio-economic mix of its vast population.
Housing varies from palaces of erstwhile maharaja
s in Rajasthan
to swanky apartment buildings in big cities to tiny huts in far-flung villages. There is tremendous opportunity for growth in India's housing sector as incomes rise.
There are certain unique characteristics of Indian culture which drives its housing set-up. The most common structure is for the extended family (usually referred to as joint family) to live in the same house. For instance grandparents, their sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren live in the same household sharing the same kitchen. Brothers, sisters and cousins grow up together. Each husband-wife combination has their own bedroom. The eldest woman in the house sets the menu and leads the cooking. Women live with their in-laws after marriage.
With modernisation there is a small but growing section of nuclear families in urban areas. It is still extremely rare for senior citizens to live alone. Conservative Indian society frowns upon young couples living together before marriage. Some single young adults live in same-sex dormitories during college or in shared accommodation during the early working years.
The life-style in villages takes advantage of the warm weather. Families bathe outdoors (while fully clothed) in rivers and ponds. Most of the day is spent outdoors around or near the house. Cooking is conducted outdoors in earthen stoves powered by organic fuels or in modern kerosene
stoves. Water is obtained from hand-drawn wells. Men perform their ablutions in designated spots throughout the day; women hold nature's call until after dark and again use designated outdoor spots usually behind bushes. Visitors to villages observe residents squatting down for an afternoon card game under trees or while sitting on charpoi's (traditional hand-made beds) brought outside during the day. Consequently they use their indoor space primarily for sleeping, changing or, in electrified homes, for watching TV.
44 percent of rural households have access to electricity
. Although cities have better facilities than villages, except for the major metros no city in India provides full-day water supply
.
A 2007 study by the Asian Development Bank showed that in 20 cities the average duration of supply was only 4.3 hours per day. The longest duration of supply was 12 hours per day in Chandigarh
, and the lowest was 0.3 hours per day in Rajkot. Some 400 million Indians do not have access to a proper toilet and the situation is even worse in slums across Indian cities.
The national and state governments are running programs, some funded by the World Bank
, to improve conditions. Bharat Nirman
is targeting clean water, the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission is building public toilets and sewage systems. The private sector, including companies such as Tata
, have started to enter the low-income reidential projects.
experiences similar urbanisation challenges as other fast growing cities in developing countries: wide disparities in housing between the affluent, middle-income and low-income segments of the population.
Highly desirable neighbourhoods such as Colaba
, Malabar Hill
, Marine Drive
, Bandra and Juhu house professionals, industrialists, Bollywood
movie stars and expatriates. Swanky apartments have 3 or more bedrooms, ocean views, tasteful interior decoration, parking for luxury cars and sleeping quarters for maids and cooks. Around 20 to 25 per cent of people in Mumbai live in these high-rises. In 2007, Mumbai condominiums were the priciest in the developing world at around $9,000 to $10,200 per square metre. Also Mumbai has most tallest towers and more than 1500 high rise building already constructed and many more are under construction.
Despite the ongoing economic boom there is still poverty, unemployment and poor housing conditions for a section of the population. With available space at a premium, working-class Mumbai residents often reside in cramped, relatively expensive housing, usually far from workplaces. Despite this Mumbai's economic boom continues to attract migrants in search of opportunities from across the country. The number of migrants to Mumbai from outside Maharashtra during the 1991-2001 decade was 1.12 million, which amounted to 54.8% of the net addition to the population of Mumbai.
A large number of people in Mumbai live in informal housing or slums. They cover only 6-8% of the city's land even though 42% of the population lives in them. Slum growth rate in Mumbai is greater than the general urban growth rate.
Financial Times writes that "Dharavi is the grand panjandrum of the Mumbai slums". Dharavi
, Asia's second largest slum
is located in central Mumbai and houses over 1 million people. Slums are a growing tourist attraction in Mumbai.
Most of the remaining live in chawl
s and footpaths. Chawls are quintessentially Mumbai phenomenon of multi-storied tenements typically a bit higher quality than slums. 80 per cent of chawls have only one room. Pavement dwellers
refers to Mumbai dwellings built on the footpaths/pavements of city streets.
With rising incomes, most residents of slums and chawls now have modern amenities such as mobile phone
s, access to electricity and television.
Rent control
laws have helped to create the housing shortage.
, Gurgaon
and Noida
have added thousands of apartment buildings, houses, shopping malls and highways. New Delhi
's famous Lutyens bungalows house the prime minister, members of his cabinet, top political and government leaders, military officials, senior judges and top bureaucrats. New Delhi is also home to thousands of diplomatic staff of foreign countries and the United Nations
. With India's growth, Delhi has developed as a business centre for outsourcing, consulting, high-tech, research, education and health care services. Employees of these institutions are the source of growing demand for high-end world-class housing provided by major builders such as DLF
.
Roughly 18.7% of Delhi's population lives in slums, according to 2001 government statistics.
and ISRO.
All this changed in the 1990s when the Information Technology boom hit Bangalore. Y2K projects in America's IT industry resulted in shortages for skilled computer scientists and systems programmers. Bangalore was transformed into the Silicon Valley of India as over 500,000 well-paying jobs for young college graduates were created. The demographics of the city changed, new high-rise apartment buildings were built, campus-style office parks sprouted, vast shopping malls started to thrive, streets became crowded with new cars and world-class gated expatriate housing estates emerged.
Roughly 3% of Bangalore's population lives in slums
, Anwar Shah Road, Chowringhee
and Golf Green. A recent building boom has converted sprawling British Raj
era bungalows into high-rise apartment buildings with modern amenities. Kolkata, currently has the second most number of highrises and tall buildings in the country after Mumbai
the highest of them being at 50 floors(under construction). New suburbs are coming up in Rajarhat and along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass
. Once complete these apartments and penthouses will offer unmatched luxury and comfort, keeping in mind the need of NRI's, expats and the elite class.Avani is also a major builder.The tallest buildings in the city,The South City Towers,are also condominiums.
North Calcutta contains mansions built in the early 20th century during Calcutta's heyday as capital of British India, which covered all of South Asia
plus Burma and Aden
. These buildings include a court-yard surrounded by balconies, large rooms with tall ceilings, marble floors, tall pillars and crumbling artwork. Most of them are poorly maintained. The Marble Palace and other buildings received "heritage status" which provides them municipal funds and incentives to repair and restore. These mansions serve as reminder of the era of Bengali
Renaissance when Tagore
's music and dance graced the living rooms of wealthy Bengali merchants.
laws, intended to procure private land at relatively low prices for public benefit or redistribution to poorer people under social justice
programs, are abused to pressure existing landholders to sell land to a government entity, which transfers the land to developers at those low prices, and who in turn sell it back on the market at much higher prices.
Corruption is sometimes a reaction to well-meaning social activists' opposition to development. Environmentalists, "not in my backyard" activists and court cases slow down the ability to expand housing. Computerization of records relating to the classification of tracts and land ownership is a key tool in countering the illegal activities of land mafias, since it creates transparency on all information relating to a given parcel of land. This approach has been effective in Bangalore
, but efforts to extend it elsewhere have sometimes met with strong resistance by land mafias, manifesting itself as bureaucratic inaction.
Housing varies from palaces of erstwhile maharaja
Maharaja
Mahārāja is a Sanskrit title for a "great king" or "high king". The female equivalent title Maharani denotes either the wife of a Maharaja or, in states where that was customary, a woman ruling in her own right. The widow of a Maharaja is known as a Rajamata...
s in Rajasthan
Rajasthan
Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...
to swanky apartment buildings in big cities to tiny huts in far-flung villages. There is tremendous opportunity for growth in India's housing sector as incomes rise.
There are certain unique characteristics of Indian culture which drives its housing set-up. The most common structure is for the extended family (usually referred to as joint family) to live in the same house. For instance grandparents, their sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren live in the same household sharing the same kitchen. Brothers, sisters and cousins grow up together. Each husband-wife combination has their own bedroom. The eldest woman in the house sets the menu and leads the cooking. Women live with their in-laws after marriage.
With modernisation there is a small but growing section of nuclear families in urban areas. It is still extremely rare for senior citizens to live alone. Conservative Indian society frowns upon young couples living together before marriage. Some single young adults live in same-sex dormitories during college or in shared accommodation during the early working years.
The life-style in villages takes advantage of the warm weather. Families bathe outdoors (while fully clothed) in rivers and ponds. Most of the day is spent outdoors around or near the house. Cooking is conducted outdoors in earthen stoves powered by organic fuels or in modern kerosene
Kerosene
Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...
stoves. Water is obtained from hand-drawn wells. Men perform their ablutions in designated spots throughout the day; women hold nature's call until after dark and again use designated outdoor spots usually behind bushes. Visitors to villages observe residents squatting down for an afternoon card game under trees or while sitting on charpoi's (traditional hand-made beds) brought outside during the day. Consequently they use their indoor space primarily for sleeping, changing or, in electrified homes, for watching TV.
Low income housing
According to the Times of India, "a majority of Indians have per capita space equivalent to or less than a 10 feet x 10 feet room for their living, sleeping, cooking, washing and toilet needs."" The average is 103 sq ft per person in rural areas and 117 sq ft per person in urban areas.44 percent of rural households have access to electricity
Electricity in India
The electricity sector in India supplies the world's 5th largest energy consumer, accounting for 4.0% of global energy consumption by more than 17% of global population...
. Although cities have better facilities than villages, except for the major metros no city in India provides full-day water supply
Water supply and sanitation in India
Water supply and sanitation in India continue to be inadequate, despite longstanding efforts by the various levels of government and communities at improving coverage. The level of investment in water and sanitation, albeit low by international standards, has increased during the 2000s. Access has...
.
A 2007 study by the Asian Development Bank showed that in 20 cities the average duration of supply was only 4.3 hours per day. The longest duration of supply was 12 hours per day in Chandigarh
Chandigarh
Chandigarh is a union territory of India that serves as the capital of two states, Haryana and Punjab. The name Chandigarh translates as "The Fort of Chandi". The name is from an ancient temple called Chandi Mandir, devoted to the Hindu goddess Chandi, in the city...
, and the lowest was 0.3 hours per day in Rajkot. Some 400 million Indians do not have access to a proper toilet and the situation is even worse in slums across Indian cities.
The national and state governments are running programs, some funded by the World Bank
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
, to improve conditions. Bharat Nirman
Bharat Nirman
Bharat Nirman is an Indian plan for creating basic rural infrastructure. It comprises projects on irrigation, roads , housing , water supply, electrification and telecommunication connectivity....
is targeting clean water, the Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission is building public toilets and sewage systems. The private sector, including companies such as Tata
Tata Group
Tata Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Tata Group is one of the largest companies in India by market capitalization and revenue. It has interests in communications and information technology, engineering, materials, services, energy,...
, have started to enter the low-income reidential projects.
Mumbai
MumbaiMumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
experiences similar urbanisation challenges as other fast growing cities in developing countries: wide disparities in housing between the affluent, middle-income and low-income segments of the population.
Highly desirable neighbourhoods such as Colaba
Colaba
Colaba is a part of the city of Mumbai, India, and also a Lok Sabha constituency. During Portuguese rule in the 16th century, the island was known as Candil...
, Malabar Hill
Malabar Hill
Malabar Hill, a hillock in southern Mumbai , India is an extremely upmarket residential area, most known for the Walkeshwar Temple which houses the Banganga Tank. Situated at a height of 50 metres Malabar Hill, a hillock in southern Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India is an extremely upmarket...
, Marine Drive
Marine Drive
Marine Drive is a 3-kilometre-long boulevard in South Mumbai in the city of Mumbai. It is a 'C'-shaped six-lane concrete road along the coast, which is a natural bay. The road links Nariman Point to Babulnath and Malabar Hill. Marine Drive is situated over reclaimed land facing west-south-west...
, Bandra and Juhu house professionals, industrialists, Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
movie stars and expatriates. Swanky apartments have 3 or more bedrooms, ocean views, tasteful interior decoration, parking for luxury cars and sleeping quarters for maids and cooks. Around 20 to 25 per cent of people in Mumbai live in these high-rises. In 2007, Mumbai condominiums were the priciest in the developing world at around $9,000 to $10,200 per square metre. Also Mumbai has most tallest towers and more than 1500 high rise building already constructed and many more are under construction.
Despite the ongoing economic boom there is still poverty, unemployment and poor housing conditions for a section of the population. With available space at a premium, working-class Mumbai residents often reside in cramped, relatively expensive housing, usually far from workplaces. Despite this Mumbai's economic boom continues to attract migrants in search of opportunities from across the country. The number of migrants to Mumbai from outside Maharashtra during the 1991-2001 decade was 1.12 million, which amounted to 54.8% of the net addition to the population of Mumbai.
A large number of people in Mumbai live in informal housing or slums. They cover only 6-8% of the city's land even though 42% of the population lives in them. Slum growth rate in Mumbai is greater than the general urban growth rate.
Financial Times writes that "Dharavi is the grand panjandrum of the Mumbai slums". Dharavi
Dharavi
Dharavi is a slum and administrative ward, over parts of Sion, Bandra, Kurla and Kalina suburbs of Mumbai, India. It is sandwiched between Mahim in the west and Sion in the east, and spread over an area of 175 hectares, or...
, Asia's second largest slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
is located in central Mumbai and houses over 1 million people. Slums are a growing tourist attraction in Mumbai.
Most of the remaining live in chawl
Chawl
A chawl is a name for a type of building found in India. They are often 4 to 5 stories with about 10 to 20 tenements, referred to as kholis, which literally mean 'rooms' on each floor...
s and footpaths. Chawls are quintessentially Mumbai phenomenon of multi-storied tenements typically a bit higher quality than slums. 80 per cent of chawls have only one room. Pavement dwellers
Pavement dwellers
Pavement dwellers refers to Mumbai dwellings built on the footpaths/pavements of city streets, which use the walls or fences which separate building compounds from the pavement and street outside...
refers to Mumbai dwellings built on the footpaths/pavements of city streets.
With rising incomes, most residents of slums and chawls now have modern amenities such as mobile phone
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
s, access to electricity and television.
Rent control
Rent control
Rent control refers to laws or ordinances that set price controls on the renting of residential housing. It functions as a price ceiling.Rent control exists in approximately 40 countries around the world...
laws have helped to create the housing shortage.
Delhi
Delhi has witnessed rapid suburban growth over the past decade. South DelhiSouth Delhi
South Delhi is an administrative district of the National Capital Territory of Delhi in India.It is bounded by the Yamuna River to the east, the districts of New Delhi to the north, Faridabad District of Haryana state to the southeast, Gurgaon District of Haryana to the southwest, and South West...
, Gurgaon
Gurgaon
Gurgaon is the second largest city in the Indian state of Haryana. Gurgaon is the industrial and financial center of Haryana. It is located 30 km south of national capital New Delhi, about 10 kilometers from Dwarka Sub City and 268 km south of Chandigarh, the state capital...
and Noida
Noida
Noida , short for the New Okhla Industrial Development Area, is an area in India under the management of the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority . Noida came into administrative existence on 17 April 1976 and celebrates 17 April as "Noida Day". It was set up as part of an urbanization...
have added thousands of apartment buildings, houses, shopping malls and highways. New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...
's famous Lutyens bungalows house the prime minister, members of his cabinet, top political and government leaders, military officials, senior judges and top bureaucrats. New Delhi is also home to thousands of diplomatic staff of foreign countries and the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
. With India's growth, Delhi has developed as a business centre for outsourcing, consulting, high-tech, research, education and health care services. Employees of these institutions are the source of growing demand for high-end world-class housing provided by major builders such as DLF
Dlf
DLF may refer to:*DLF Limited, India's largest real estate firm, formerly known as Delhi Land and Finance*Darfur Liberation Front*Dhofar Liberation Front, a Marxist movement based in southern Oman*Development Loan Fund, former lending arm of the U.S...
.
Roughly 18.7% of Delhi's population lives in slums, according to 2001 government statistics.
Bangalore
Bangalore's mild year-round weather prompted its emergence as a favourite retirement location in the 1950s and 1960s. The quiet town witnessed leafy streets lined with bungalows. The only lively areas were the restaurants which lined Mahatma Gandhi Road. Retirees went on leisurely walks in the gardens around the British-era Army cantonment earning Bangalore the sobriquet "Garden City". A few accomplished academics and researchers worked at the famous Indian Institute of ScienceIndian Institute of Science
Indian Institute of Science is a research institution of higher learning located in Bangalore, India. It was established in 1909.-History:After a chance meeting between Jamsetji N...
and ISRO.
All this changed in the 1990s when the Information Technology boom hit Bangalore. Y2K projects in America's IT industry resulted in shortages for skilled computer scientists and systems programmers. Bangalore was transformed into the Silicon Valley of India as over 500,000 well-paying jobs for young college graduates were created. The demographics of the city changed, new high-rise apartment buildings were built, campus-style office parks sprouted, vast shopping malls started to thrive, streets became crowded with new cars and world-class gated expatriate housing estates emerged.
Roughly 3% of Bangalore's population lives in slums
Kolkata
Kolkata's most sought-after neighbourhoods are around Park Street, Camac Street, Lower Circular Road, Sarat Bose Road, Salt Lake, BallygungeBallygunge
Ballygunge is an upmarket and elite locality in South Kolkata, India. It is flanked by Park Circus in the north, Kasba and the Eastern Railway south suburban line in the east, Dhakuria and the Lakes in the south, and the localities of Bhowanipore and Lansdowne in the west...
, Anwar Shah Road, Chowringhee
Chowringhee
Chowringhee is a neighbourhood in central Kolkata, earlier known as Calcutta, in the Indian state of West Bengal. Jawaharlal Nehru Road runs on its western side...
and Golf Green. A recent building boom has converted sprawling British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
era bungalows into high-rise apartment buildings with modern amenities. Kolkata, currently has the second most number of highrises and tall buildings in the country after Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
the highest of them being at 50 floors(under construction). New suburbs are coming up in Rajarhat and along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass
Eastern Metropolitan Bypass
The Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, or simply E.M. Bypass, is a major road on the east side of Kolkata that connects Bidhannagar on the northeast to southern parts of Kolkata. It was designed like a bypass or beltway on the eastern side of Kolkata to lessen the perennial traffic congestion on the...
. Once complete these apartments and penthouses will offer unmatched luxury and comfort, keeping in mind the need of NRI's, expats and the elite class.Avani is also a major builder.The tallest buildings in the city,The South City Towers,are also condominiums.
North Calcutta contains mansions built in the early 20th century during Calcutta's heyday as capital of British India, which covered all of South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
plus Burma and Aden
Aden
Aden is a seaport city in Yemen, located by the eastern approach to the Red Sea , some 170 kilometres east of Bab-el-Mandeb. Its population is approximately 800,000. Aden's ancient, natural harbour lies in the crater of an extinct volcano which now forms a peninsula, joined to the mainland by a...
. These buildings include a court-yard surrounded by balconies, large rooms with tall ceilings, marble floors, tall pillars and crumbling artwork. Most of them are poorly maintained. The Marble Palace and other buildings received "heritage status" which provides them municipal funds and incentives to repair and restore. These mansions serve as reminder of the era of Bengali
Bengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
Renaissance when Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
's music and dance graced the living rooms of wealthy Bengali merchants.
Hyderabad
Hyderabad housing in modern ages in the years 2010 has become more modern than the other ages .the beautiful landscapes,sites,include excellent housing facilities.houses in hyderabad have become excellent infrastructure for gated communities,villas, hyper citiesCorruption
In general India's crime rates trails those of other developing countries. There is a large developed housing market with major builders and promoters. Some municipal and other government officials, elected politicians, real estate developers and a few law enforcement officials, acquire, develop and sell land in illegal ways. Sometimes, government land or land ostensibly acquired for some legitimate government purpose is then handed over to real estate developers who build commercial and residential properties and sell them in the open market, with the connivance of a small section of the administrative and police officials. In one set of allegations in Karnataka, a lake was filled in and government buildings torn down after illegal transfers to a developer by mafia-connected officials. Eminent domainEminent domain
Eminent domain , compulsory purchase , resumption/compulsory acquisition , or expropriation is an action of the state to seize a citizen's private property, expropriate property, or seize a citizen's rights in property with due monetary compensation, but without the owner's consent...
laws, intended to procure private land at relatively low prices for public benefit or redistribution to poorer people under social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
programs, are abused to pressure existing landholders to sell land to a government entity, which transfers the land to developers at those low prices, and who in turn sell it back on the market at much higher prices.
Corruption is sometimes a reaction to well-meaning social activists' opposition to development. Environmentalists, "not in my backyard" activists and court cases slow down the ability to expand housing. Computerization of records relating to the classification of tracts and land ownership is a key tool in countering the illegal activities of land mafias, since it creates transparency on all information relating to a given parcel of land. This approach has been effective in Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
, but efforts to extend it elsewhere have sometimes met with strong resistance by land mafias, manifesting itself as bureaucratic inaction.