Stalled budget homes far exceed SWAMIH target of 100,000 hsg units

Although the 2025-26 union budget has allocated ₹15,000 crore towards completion of 100,000 stalled affordable housing units across the country under the aegis of SWAMIH (Special Window for Affordable and Mid-Income Housing) Fund 2.0, the actual quantum of stalled housing units is far higher, according to data collated by real estate research and rating agency Liases Foras.

- Ateeq Shaikh

MUMBAI:

Approximately 86,000 housing units have been stalled in the past two years alone, a bulk of them in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), shows data from Liases Foras, shared exclusively with Hindustan Times.

"Around 96% of these stalled apartments are priced below ₹2 crore," Pankaj Kapoor, managing director, Liases Foras, told HT.

Data from Gurugram-based real estate platform PropEquity paints a more grim picture. As of August 2024, over 500,000 housing units across 42 cities were stalled, among which 95,403 units were located in the MMR, the data shows.

Analysts welcomed the new allocation, but signaled that concerted efforts were required to address the spate of stalled projects across the country.

Tiding over the pandemic
The first installment of the SWAMIH Fund — launched in 2019, months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit India — helped kickstart work on approximately 90,000 affordable housing units, according to official data.

"The situation in the real estate sector has been grim since the pandemic," an analyst told HT on condition of anonymity. "Had the government not introduced relief through the SWAMIH Fund in 2019, the real estate industry would have become like a critical patient by now, needing life support in a hospital."