Banker’s Committee submitted its report on Rural Housing to Rural Development Minister

The Banker’s committee Report was submitted to the Union Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister Shri Vilasrao Deshmukh by the Chairman of the Committee, Sri R.Sridhar, Chairman and MD , Central Bank Of India at Krishi Bhawan on 25th May, 2011. Shri Deshmukh said that the recommendations would be examined by the Ministry towards its commitment of providing affordable housing for the rural people across the country.

Here are some of the recommendations made by the high level committee of bankers:

• A hike in allocation of grants for construction of rural housing units for Below the Poverty Line Households (BPL) from Rs. 45,000 to Rs. 75,000 per dwelling unit.
• It also suggested a loan of 50,000 is in the form of affordable credit at 4% under Differential Rate of Interest (DRI) Scheme of the Government of India.
• It recommended to extend the repayment period to 15 years as the loan is given for housing and the EMI may be limited to 300-350 as then it would be within the repayment capacity of the borrower.
• It also proposed setting up a dedicated “Rural Habitat Development Fund” for the planned development of the rural housing and housing finance landscape.
• The Expert group has recommended setting up of a “Rural Risk Fund” with contributions from all stake holders including beneficiaries and to encourage Insurance Linked Products with housing so as to reduce the cost of housing finance to the various stake holders.

The Committee has proposed the following Schemes for BPL & APL households:

• Bankable Scheme for Below Poverty Line (BPL) Households
• Bankable Scheme for Above Poverty Line (APL) Households
• Bankable Scheme of Productive Housing for BPL/APL Households Loan Amount

The Eight member Committee was headed by Sri R.Sridhar, CMD of Central Bank Of India with Suman Beri of NCAER, Dr. K.G.Karmakar MD of NABARD Renu Sood Karnad, MD of HDFC, V.K.Sharma, ED of RBI , R.V.Verma,ED of NHB , Dr. D.Bhandari a Chartered Accountant and Joint Secretary Rural Housing under the Minstry Of Rural Development as its members.