ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 presents a review of the relevant housing policies. It starts with a global context for the enabling strategy, referring to the works of Charles Abrams (1964, 1966) and John Turner (1968), who viewed squatter settlements and the self-help initiatives of the poor as a solution to housing problems. It presents the serious debates that have ensued on whether the provision should be through formal or informal mechanisms and on who should be the provider – market or state, a non-governmental organisation, or a public-private partnership – chalking out the advantages and disadvantages in every kind of provision. By surveying some of the best practices in the formal approaches to the provision of affordable housing, the chapter arrives at what India has done so far to resolve the issue of lack of affordable housing. It then provides an in-depth analysis of the structure of housing provision, the rules of allocation of funds, the privatisation of the housing market in Chhattisgarh, and the various strategies and measures undertaken at the national, state, and provincial levels. The chapter closes with a critical analysis of why the public-private partnership and commercialisation strategies failed, and what needs to be done for them to be promoted effectively.
