“Wise people live in rented houses; fools live in their own houses” is an old adage that has long been viewed differently in our society. For the middle class and the privileged, owning a roof over one’s head is often a matter of aspiration, inheritance and financial planning. Many manage to inherit or make do with what their parents, grandparents or in-laws leave behind.
But the story is entirely different for the underprivileged and the poorest of the poor. For political parties and governments, housing for the poor has also become an attractive electoral promise. The formula is simple: promise a house, win votes and then slowly try to implement the promise. Unfortunately, somewhere between the promise and its execution, the fruit sometimes turns out to be rotten.
We have seen this repeatedly. Large numbers of 2BHK houses were constructed at great speed, but occupancy did not always keep pace with construction. In Telangana, for instance, keys were distributed for more than 1.46 lakh houses, yet actual physical occupation lagged significantly because of factors such as remote locations, incomplete civic amenities and administrative delays. The result was a peculiar paradox: houses meant for the homeless remained unoccupied.
Without turning this into another political blame game, perhaps it is time to question the system itself. A scheme intended to provide succour to the deprived should not end up punishing the very people it seeks to help. For a poor family struggling for roti, kapada aur makaan, a house that comes with an unaffordable financial burden can become another source of misery.
The Rajiv Gruhakalpa housing projects of the late 1980s and early 1990s offer an instructive example. Hundreds of flats were constructed and offered at subsidised prices, but many remained vacant for years because of inadequate civic infrastructure, poor road connectivity, lack of basic amenities and, in some locations, proximity to dumping yards. Visit areas such as Jawahar Nagar and Dammaiguda and one can still find housing colonies where occupancy has not matched the scale of construction.
Ironically, many such houses may have acquired substantial real-estate value over the years. Yet restrictions on sale and transfer, coupled with the original objective of reserving them for the economically weaker sections, make it difficult for beneficiaries to use that asset freely.
The uncomfortable truth is that governments, irrespective of political affiliation, have often treated housing as a construction target rather than as a complete living solution. Building walls is only one part of providing a home. Roads, drainage, water, electricity, sanitation, public transport, schools and other basic civic facilities are equally important.
The much-publicised Indiramma Housing scheme provides another case worth examining.
Consider Shankeraiah, whose name has been changed at his request. He is a maistry (mason) from an area that was earlier part of Warangal district and is now in Mahabubabad district. He owns a small piece of land and applied under the housing scheme. He was sanctioned assistance for constructing a house and has so far received around ₹4 lakh.
Shankeraiah and his wife are hardworking daily earners in the construction sector. Together, they earn approximately ₹50,000–₹70,000 a month through sustained physical labour. But instead of building a house within the assistance available, he borrowed heavily because he believed that a ₹5 lakh house would not be adequate or comfortable for his family.
He eventually borrowed around ₹15 lakh. Of this, approximately ₹6 lakh came from a bank at an interest rate he describes as 70 paise per ₹100 per month, while the remaining amount was borrowed from private lenders at around ₹2 per ₹100 per month. The bank interest is paid annually, while the private borrowing requires monthly interest payments.
His reasoning is revealing.
There is an old saying that the size of one’s bread should be according to the flour available in one’s hands. But Shankeraiah argues that the analogy does not work when constructing a house. Once construction begins, compromises become difficult. What starts as a basic house gradually becomes a larger financial commitment.
Today, he regrets the decision.
Earlier, he says, his feet were firmly on the ground. Now he feels as though he has fallen into a deep financial pit.
That is the real question governments must confront.
Shankeraiah belongs to the Scheduled Caste community. Through sheer hard work, he managed to educate his two daughters. The elder is now employed as a teacher in a private residential school, earning around ₹30,000 a month, along with food and accommodation. His younger daughter is an engineering graduate who is currently upgrading her skills.
His biggest fear is not the house itself. It is what happens if his health fails and he becomes a liability to his daughters while the loans remain outstanding.
He insists that many other beneficiaries are facing a similar predicament.
This is where governments need to rethink the philosophy behind free or subsidised housing.
Would it not be better to identify the genuinely homeless and poorest families living in huts and provide them with a simple, functional and dignified house that does not force them into additional debt? Instead of merely releasing ₹5 lakh in three or four instalments and leaving the beneficiary to manage the rest, the government should consider guiding the beneficiary towards a standard, affordable house design.
The objective should be a home within the family’s financial capacity—not a showcase house beyond it.
If ₹5 lakh is insufficient for a durable conventional house, governments have two choices. They can substantially enhance the assistance—say, to ₹10 lakh where economically justified—or explore low-cost, eco-friendly housing models that can genuinely be constructed within the existing assistance. Solar-powered, energy-efficient and prefabricated housing technologies could also be explored where appropriate.
The earlier 2BHK model demonstrates the other extreme. Some such units represented an expenditure of around ₹20 lakh or more per dwelling when the overall construction and infrastructure costs were taken into account. The enormous public expenditure involved is justified only if the intended beneficiaries actually receive and occupy those homes.
A housing scheme cannot be judged merely by the number of houses constructed, keys distributed or photographs taken at inauguration ceremonies.
The real measure is whether a poor family has actually moved into a safe, affordable and sustainable home.
There is another dimension that governments should not ignore. A poor beneficiary may be unable to sell such a house later, particularly in rural areas where there may be few buyers and many distressed sellers. If the family is simultaneously burdened with private debt, the house can become an illiquid asset rather than a source of security.
This brings to mind the Telugu saying “melu chesi keedu cheyatam”—roughly, doing good while inadvertently causing harm.
Let us not make the poor poorer in the name of giving them a house.
A government that is genuinely sincere about housing for the poor must go beyond construction targets and electoral optics. It must go right up to the last mile—from identifying the genuinely homeless family to designing the house, ensuring basic amenities and preventing the beneficiary from falling into an unmanageable debt trap.
The bottom line is simple: the purpose of a housing scheme is to help a poor family live better, not to leave it struggling to repay a house it cannot afford.
Governments must therefore relook at free housing schemes—not necessarily by abandoning them, but by making them smarter, simpler and more sustainable.
Under the guise of doing a favour through populist schemes, governments can sometimes create unintended burdens. And when political parties eventually come to power, the temptation to search for irregularities and alleged scams in earlier schemes often becomes another political cycle.
Perhaps it is time to innovate rather than merely promise.
For the poorest of the poor, not doing a favour may sometimes be a favour—if the alternative is pushing them into a debt trap in the name of helping them.
