What is the nature for low-income urban public rental housing in India? Public rental housing is generally more accessible and affordable than home ownership, benefiting myriad social groups and protecting households against vulnerability and making it easier for new immigrants to live and work in a new city. This case explores the public rental housing policies in India through its regulatory regimes and institutional frameworks, with an emphasis on the Mumbai Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority’s plan to approve close to 50 public rental housing schemes in Mumbai.  Comparative analysis of schemes in other cities provide a wider perspective of the rental housing public-private partnership models that exist in India today.

About the Case Author
Swastik is a part of the design and implementation team for the IIHS Urban Practitioners’ Programme, the executive and continuing education function at IIHS. His main area of work is around housing for the urban poor, with a special focus on rental housing mechanisms. Besides these, he is also involved in capacity building programmes around heritage planning and management, data visualization and green building technologies and concepts. Swastik has earlier been involved in the planning, research and execution the development of various IIHS campuses, and has also assisted in the financial modelling for IIHS long term financial projections. He has also contributed significantly to the IT-based Pedagogic and Project Technology Systems.

In his 12 years of work experience, Swastik has founded a start-up architectural consultancy, worked as an independent architectural consultant and installation artist, and been faculty at many architectural design studios. Besides his experience in his core areas of architecture and design as well as teaching and pedagogical design, Swastik has technical expertise in physical and virtual modelling (prototyping), and advanced proprietary and open source software. Swastik received his B.Arch from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi.