National Housing Policies and Five-Year Plans in India

Housing sits at the centre of how cities work, yet a comfortable, secure home remains out of reach for millions of urban residents. To address this gap, the government has used two broad instruments over the decades: dedicated housing policies and the periodic allocations made through the Five-Year Plans. Understanding how these tools evolved, and how the courts gradually recognised shelter as a legal entitlement, helps explain why “Housing for All” became a defining policy goal. This post traces that journey, from the landmark National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy of 2007 to the constitutional debates that shape housing rights today.

The National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy, 2007
The core goals of the policy
A sharp focus on EWS and LIG groups
Key initiatives and delivery mechanisms
Housing in the Five-Year Plans
The early plans and the shift away from clearance
The middle plans: improvement over removal
Liberalisation and the post-reform plans
Constitutional and legal aspects of housing
Reading shelter into Article 21
The global housing rights framework

The National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy, 2007

The formulation of a national housing policy has been an ongoing process since 1986, with the policy last revised in 1998. By the mid-2000s, rapid urbanisation and a widening shortage of homes prompted a fresh approach. The National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy (NUHHP), 2007 was finalised and laid in Parliament after a Task Force constituted in 2005 drafted it and circulated it among stakeholders. What set it apart from earlier policies was its exclusive focus on urban housing and its central promise of “Affordable Housing for All.”

The core goals of the policy

The ultimate goal of NUHHP 2007 was to ensure the sustainable development of all urban human settlements, supported by basic civic amenities, so that every urban citizen could enjoy a better quality of life. The full text of the policy reframed the role of the government as a “facilitator” and “regulator” rather than the sole provider of housing, adopting a regional planning approach. It also asked each State and Union Territory to prepare an Action Plan with the active involvement of all stakeholders, and to frame a State Urban Housing and Habitat Policy of its own.

A sharp focus on EWS and LIG groups

The urgency behind the policy was rooted in hard numbers. The urban housing shortage stood at roughly 24.7 million units at the end of the Tenth Plan period, and almost the entire shortage fell within the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Low Income Group (LIG) categories. These households are typically priced out of the open market, so the policy gave them special emphasis through “social housing.”

Several concrete measures backed this focus. The policy recommended reserving 10 to 15 percent of land in every new public or private housing project, or 20 to 25 percent of the Floor Area Ratio, whichever is greater, for EWS and LIG housing through spatial incentives. States were advised to prepare ten-year perspective plans for EWS and LIG housing. There were also dedicated provisions for the housing needs of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, minorities, persons with disabilities, and women.

Key initiatives and delivery mechanisms

NUHHP 2007 leaned heavily on partnerships and finance to bridge the gap between need and supply. Given the magnitude of the shortage and tight government budgets, the policy promoted various forms of public-private partnerships, drawing in the private sector, the cooperative sector, the industrial sector for labour housing, and institutions for employee housing.

For the urban poor, the policy gave primacy to providing shelter at or near the present location and place of work, favouring in-situ slum rehabilitation over relocation, which was reserved for specific cases. Other initiatives included promoting micro-finance institutions at the state level to channel funds to the poor, encouraging rental housing as a viable option alongside ownership, preparing model municipal laws, using cost-effective building technologies, and developing detailed city maps based on GIS and aerial surveys. The scheme of Affordable Housing in Partnership was later launched to operationalise the partnership strategy the policy envisaged.

Housing in the Five-Year Plans

Before standalone housing policies took shape, the Five-Year Plans were the main vehicle for directing money and intent toward shelter. Urban policies in the country were largely implemented as national plans, with their objectives pursued through the Five-Year Plans until 2012. Reading the Plans in sequence reveals a clear story of changing attitudes, especially toward slums.

The early plans and the shift away from clearance

In the first phase, the approach was fragmented but active. The First Plan treated slums as a national problem and advocated their complete clearance from cities, alongside housing for refugees from the partition and for government employees. The government quickly realised it had neither the money nor the institutional capacity to deliver wholesale clearance. As the trajectory of urban development shows, the first three Plans concentrated on housing provision, slum clearance, and rehabilitation, while the Second Plan introduced town and country planning laws and new planning institutions.

By the Second Plan, the tone had softened from outright clearance to slum improvement wherever feasible. Schemes for rural housing, slum clearance, and industrial worker housing were introduced, and the concept gradually moved toward rebuilding and resettling residents rather than simply removing them. The Third Plan placed greater emphasis on regional and urban planning, and saw the setting up of the Central Housing Board.

The middle plans: improvement over removal

Through the Fourth and Fifth Plans, the focus turned firmly toward upgrading existing settlements and providing basic amenities such as water and sanitation, rather than demolishing them. This represented an important conceptual shift: planners began to accept that slums were a permanent feature of the urban landscape that needed to be serviced and integrated, not erased. Programmes for environmental improvement of urban slums emerged during this period.

Liberalisation and the post-reform plans

The plans from the Eighth onward, covering the period after the 1991 reforms, marked another decisive change. As the housing policy timeline records, the State increasingly took on the role of facilitator, creating a legislative, legal, and financial framework that encouraged private participation. This post-reform phase produced major initiatives such as the National Slum Development Programme, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), and later the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

The Eleventh Plan stressed urban renewal, in-situ slum improvement, and the creation of new townships, with a stated aim of ending shelterlessness for the poorest. The Twelfth Plan, the last full plan, increased unit assistance under rural housing schemes and earmarked significant funds for slum redevelopment through the Rajiv Awas Yojana, which aimed at a slum-free country. As a study of slum development policy notes, the Twelfth Plan ended in 2017, after which the role of planning shifted from the Planning Commission to NITI Aayog, which now offers policy direction rather than centralised allocation.

Constitutional and legal aspects of housing

Policies and plans set direction, but the question of whether a person has a legal claim to a home is settled by the Constitution and the courts. The text of the Constitution does not mention a right to housing directly, so this right has been built through judicial interpretation.

Reading shelter into Article 21

The key provision is Article 21, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty. Courts have interpreted “life” to mean far more than mere survival, extending it to a life of dignity that includes adequate food, clothing, and shelter. The turning point came in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985), where a five-judge bench heard the case of Mumbai’s pavement dwellers facing eviction and recognised shelter and livelihood as integral facets of the right to life.

Later judgments strengthened this foundation. In Chameli Singh v. State of Uttar Pradesh (1996), the Supreme Court held that the right to shelter is a fundamental right available to all citizens, read into Article 21 to make the right to life meaningful. Courts have also clarified that this right is a bundle that includes not just a roof but adequate space, privacy, lighting, basic infrastructure, and proximity to work and amenities. A significant procedural safeguard from this body of case law is that eligible residents must be assessed for resettlement and rehabilitation before any eviction is carried out.

The global housing rights framework

The domestic position reflects a wider international consensus that housing is a human right, not merely a market commodity. The right to adequate housing was first recognised as part of the right to an adequate standard of living in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and in Article 11.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966).

The distinction between these two instruments matters. The Universal Declaration is a non-binding declaration, while the ICESCR is a treaty that imposes binding obligations on states that ratify it. Importantly, the country acceded to the ICESCR in 1979, which means it is legally bound to take appropriate steps toward realising the right to adequate housing. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has further elaborated what “adequate” means through its General Comments, identifying elements such as security of tenure, availability of services, affordability, habitability, and accessibility.

What do you think? If shelter has been recognised as a fundamental right under Article 21 and reinforced by international treaty obligations, why does the gap between policy promises and lived reality remain so wide? And which approach do you find more effective for genuinely housing the urban poor: large-scale schemes driven from the centre, or locally designed in-situ rehabilitation that keeps people near their work?

References

PDF 📄

National Housing Policies and Five-Year Plans in India

Table of Contents

The National Urban Housing and Habitat Policy, 2007 🔗

The core goals of the policy 🔗

A sharp focus on EWS and LIG groups 🔗

Key initiatives and delivery mechanisms 🔗

Housing in the Five-Year Plans 🔗

The early plans and the shift away from clearance 🔗

The middle plans: improvement over removal 🔗

Liberalisation and the post-reform plans 🔗

Constitutional and legal aspects of housing 🔗

Reading shelter into Article 21 🔗

The global housing rights framework 🔗