Completed affordable houses lying vacant point to a gap between sanction and outcome in urban housing schemes. Identify the causes and suggest reforms.

Under PMAY-U and PMAY-U 2.0, 96.65 lakh houses were completed but only 94.2 lakh are occupied [2]. In 2023, the Standing Committee counted 5,62,858 completed AHP/ISSR houses lying vacant [4]. The scheme tracks output (houses sanctioned and completed), not outcome (houses lived in).

Causes of vacancy

• 'Complete' without services: houses are counted as finished even when water, roads or power are missing. In Dec 2022, 5.6 lakh houses could not be handed over for this reason [3].
• Weak ULBs: trunk infrastructure is the ULB's job. Yet ULBs' own revenue covers only 32% of their total revenue, and only 4 of the 18 Twelfth Schedule functions are fully devolved to them [2].
• Poor location: land can make up 63% of housing cost in metros [2], so AHP flats get pushed to city edges, far from jobs. Only about 30% of completed ISSR houses are occupied [2].
• Affordability: beneficiaries pay about 60% of the cost of an EWS house, and some States do not pay their share [3].
• Allotment delays: in Telangana, 96% of completed houses in its 2BHK scheme (merged with the AHP vertical) had not been allotted [5].
• Sanction-first incentives: the 10th CSMC flagged non-compliant proposals and slow occupancy, yet it approved new AHP projects [1]. PMAY-U spends on average 34% less than its budget [2].

Reforms

• Measure outcomes: report houses occupied, not houses completed [4]. Link new AHP sanctions to how many of a State's existing AHP houses are occupied.
• Fund services together with houses: approve AHP only after the trunk services are funded, using the 16th Finance Commission's tied water and sanitation grants to ULBs [2].
• Rent out empty houses: move unoccupied flats into the ARH vertical, building on the ARHC model [2].
• Assistance that reflects land cost: vary central help by region and land cost, as the Standing Committee advised [3].
• Rental ecosystem: get more States to adopt the Model Tenancy Act, 2021 (so far only six have) and lease land banks for rental housing, as NITI Aayog and MoHUA propose [2].
• Accountable ULBs: hold timely elections and give ULBs the devolution promised under the 74th Amendment.

Empty houses are the result of a scheme that rewards sanctions over habitation. Tying funds to occupancy, building services alongside houses and opening a rental route can turn these structures into homes. That would deliver on the promise of "Housing for All" and on SDG 11's goal of adequate, inclusive urban housing.