Sriram Mahadevan, Managing Director, JoyvilleShapoorji Housing, shares more on the potential of affordable housing in India and the company’s focus going forward with SHRIYAL SETHUMADHAVAN.

For corporate developers, availability of funds has never been a challenge. The situation has not changed much, even during the current liquidity crunch witnessed overall in the financial market.

Demand for affordable housing has always been there; this lends itself to huge construction opportunities. The healthy pipeline of construction activities in the affordable segment will keep generating employment opportunities that, in turn, will fuel the GDP growth rate going forward. Thus, construction of affordable housing will surely contribute positively to the overall growth of the economy.

Building affordable housing in far-flung areas with scanty connectivity and social infrastructure is not desirable as the target segment may not like to displace themselves and move to such a place. The solution is to fuel the infrastructure of metros connecting the far-flung areas through an efficient mass transport system, which would ensure that an increasing amount of landis made available in the market for development. Infrastructure should precede residential development and not the other way round. Approval timelines have remained a challenge for the real-estate sector. Single-window clearance with defined timelines will surely help the viability of the business and ensure more supplies are infused in the market.

Joyville is catering to the mid-income segment, which is important in the overall growth story for the next five years in India. We are present in four metros in India so far and would like to focus on getting into other job-creating metros like Bengaluruand Hyderabad, apart from expanding in Mumbai, Pune and Delhi (NCR).