Proper housing is also a financial shelter



‘Roti, kapda aur makan’ was the original development slogan encapsulating the poverty alleviation programme in India. It has now changed to ‘bijli, sadak aur paani’. But the essence of the development strategy hasn’t really changed. What has changed is the vehicle of delivery that will generate ‘roti, kapda aur makan’ for the underprivileged.

To look into the rationale of why ‘makan’ or the housing for the poor might actually be the answer to their quest for financial shelter along with ‘roti aur kapda’ let us first look into the reason behind the change in the development slogan.

If we look at the first, it is clear that the slogan specifies development target and fails to identify the route to achieve that. The second, on the other hand, identifies the route.

Electricity, road and water together create the basic infrastructure for livelihood generation.

The logic here is simple – if we can provide the poor with market access, selling their enterprise and labour, to that extent, becomes easier. But market access is not enough. To leverage market access one also needs access to finance so that they can fund their enterprise to turn their labour into marketable product.

This is the point in the chain where microfinance companies and affordable housing enter the picture.

With more than 90 percent of the poor lacking proper shelter, access to affordable housing is dire. Add the fact that for the poor house is where the production takes place, the issue of housing takes up an extra dimension in the fight against poverty.

Housing for the poor is more often seen as just a house. But if we look at their housing need beyond the need for a shelter, as it has been argued here, we clearly see that it is also an empowering infrastructure to boost their productivity. Microfinance institutions have the access and the necessary skill to evaluate and minimise risk of credit to the poor. Given this skill and the government’s focus on creating access to affordable housing, microfinance can go a long way by adopting housing loan as a product to create financial shelter for the poor.

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