West Bengal Housing Policy

West Bengal Housing Policy The major policy of the Housing Department aims at creation of sufficient housing stock either on rental or ownership basis and provision of quality and cost effective housing and shelter option to the citizens specially the vulnerable groups like S.C., S.T., B.P.L. and the poor. So far the Department has concentrated its activities in Urban Housing but it has now contemplated to enter the Rural Housing Sector which is now being looked after by the Panchayat and Rural Development Department. The West Bengal Housing Board (WBHB) has been formed in early seventies under the West Bengal Housing Board Act, 1972. It is a statutory organisation under the Department of Housing. It has been playing an important role since its inception in the field of housing and urban development in our State. To bridge the increasing gap between the demand and the supply of the housing stock in West Bengal, the Department has assumed the role of a provider and facilitator to the poor and middle class community respectively. It also decided to encourage not only private sectors but also public-private partnership by formation of Joint Sector Companies between Private Sector and the West Bengal Housing Board to augment the present housing stock. Five such companies had already been set up and more such companies would be formed in future.

West Bengal is one of the few states to have successfully grounded a major New Town Project in Rajarhat area on the basis of the nation-wide programme that had conceptualised the creation of 100 New Towns by 2021. A government Company under the name of the West Bengal Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (HIDCO) has been formed on 26/04/1999 to implement the New Town Project. To protect interest of the prospective buyers and to encourage the private promoters by addressing their genuine problems the Housing Department has enacted the West Bengal Building (Regulation of promotion of construction and Transfer by promoters) Act , 1993. The basic objective of the Act being not to curb the Private Sector initiatives but to ensure that the buyers are not cheated and the basic parameters for building construction are not compromised. Another regulatory measure in the field of housing activities in urban areas taken by the Housing Department is the enactment of the W.B. Apartment Ownership Act, 1972 so as to ensure administration of the apartments and condominiums in a regular and effective way. The Brick Production Directorate under the administrative control of the Department has been promoting production of good quality bricks through manual and mechanised process in different districts of West Bengal for the last 36 years with the objective to supply good quality bricks to the people at low cost. The Government in the Housing Department has a contemplation to set up building centres, to be run by Non-Government Organisations to help people build low cost houses with locally available materials.