81 stressed housing projects approved under Special Window fund
Reviewing the performance of Special Window for Affordable and Mid Income Housing with the senior management team of the State Bank of India, SBI Capital Markets Limited and SBICAPS Ventures Limited, the FM said the fund has approved 81 projects with an investment of ₹8767 crore
Eight months after the cabinet approved a ₹25,000 crore special window to provide funding to housing projects that are stuck with the aim of reviving the real estate sector, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a review meeting on Thursday said that 81 projects have been approved so far.
Reviewing the performance of Special Window for Affordable and Mid Income Housing (SWAMIH)with the senior management team of the State Bank of India, SBI Capital Markets Limited and SBICAPS Ventures Limited (SVL), the minister said the fund has approved 81 projects with an investment of ₹8767 crore.
The approval, under the SWAMIH Investment Fund I, will enable the completion of nearly 60,000 homes across India.
These projects are spread across both large cities such as National Capital Region (NCR), Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR), Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune as well as Tier 2 locations including Karnal, Panipat, Lucknow, Surat, Dehradun, Kota, Nagpur, Jaipur, Nashik, Vizag, Chandigarh among others.
Among these projects, investments in 18 projects have been given final clearance and disbursement is at various stages across 7 residential projects.
Applications from 353 stressed projects are under examination for provision of assistance. Additionally, the Fund is actively evaluating options to provide relief to nearly 15,000 homebuyers in some long-stalled projects, which are pending before the Supreme Court for resolution.
The residential sector has witnessed a prolonged slowdown that has led not only in a sharp fall in home sales along with a liquidity crunch. The covid-19 crisis has only aggravated the slowdown, with thousands of projects unable to restart due to labour and fund shortage even after unlocking.
Acknowledging the steps taken by the Special Window to expedite participation from existing lenders, Sitharaman suggested that both private and public banks, non-banking financial companies and housing finance companies should see it as a stakeholder and increase support early completion of stressed projects.
During the review meeting , the minister asked the Department of Economic Affairs to closely monitor the performance of the SWAMIH Investment Fund I in order to ensure that the capital raised is promptly committed towards resolving stressed projects and remove any impediments that could arise in this process.
She also stressed that speedy effort be made to complete construction of projects for which last mile funding has been sanctioned.
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