infrastructure

A major political question for governments around the globe is to determine which form of housing tenure – ownership or rental – would best fit their housing policy agenda. It is now well understood that both forms of tenure need to be taken into consideration as complementary and integral parts of urban housing markets. However, rental housing is not a distinct category, but an umbrella term which covers diverse manifestation of renting a home and various forms of supply. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2019, this piece explores the rental practices in Ambedkar Nagar, a 1990s sites and services scheme in Chennai, India in the context of recent changes in rental legislation in the state of Tamil Nadu where Chennai is located.

India’s urban landscape is dotted with a diversity of urban areas, where large metros like Delhi or Mumbai co-exist alongside a dense network of small towns. While house-building across the urban spectrum was significant and was equally high in all tiers of cities and towns over the past decade, the leap from houses to housing (viz. access to basic amenities) was not similarly universal over the same period.

This report is based on a primary assessment of the state of habitat improvement in Kerala, under the ambit of PMAY (U)-LIFE (Livelihood, Inclusion and Financial Empowerment) Mission, through a quantitative household survey in three cities of Kerala – Kochi, Trivandrum and Mukkam. It finds that the State’s interventions towards the Housing for All agenda have underscored the importance attributed to the landless and the homeless in the state, rather than slum dwellers exclusively. The State’s interventions have also successfully demonstrated an approach towards enabling livelihoods through housing and imbibing financial empowerment among women.