Background

Urban India currently faces a wide gap between the demand and supply of housing in terms of quantity and quality. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MHUPA) has estimated an urban housing shortage of 18.78 million in the country at the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan, more than 95% of which pertains to houses for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Lower-Income Groups (LIG). If this shortage continues to increase, it would mean that nearly 110 million houses need to be constructed with an investment of over USD 2 trillion by 2022.Housing is primarily an energy and resource intensive sector. It contributes to about 24% of the total CO2 emissions in India. Even though energy efficiency in buildings has been the focus of attention, it has been limited to commercial and high-end residential buildings. The proposed solutions are intended to be replicable in other developing countries.