Housing for all by 2022 government's motto, says Venkaiah Naidu

Bangalore: Highlighting the priorities of his ministry, Union Minister for Urban Development, Housing and Poverty Alleviation Venkaiah Naidu on Friday said that private sector as part of their social responsibility should go for housing for their staff.

"Employment is going to be a major challenge before the country, no government can provide employment to all through government jobs, so you need to have public private partnership, and you need to involve private sector, public sector and agencies like banks, LIC..." Naidu said.

He said that he wants to motivate private sector to go for housing for their staff as part of their social responsibility because "housing for all by 2022 is the motto of this government."

Describing it as "a gigantic task", he said government alone will not be able to achieve it and "... so you need to involve public private partnership, you need to involve corporate sector".

He said that he is calling a meeting for the purpose on June 2 of various stake holders. "We want to involve the state, local bodies, private sector, public sector in this massive ambitious programme of housing for all," he said.

Stating that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that priority should be given to problems of urban settlers, Naidu said that 32 per cent of the country's population was living in towns.

"It was 17 per cent in 1951 and now it is more than 32 per cent. Going by the trend by 2050, 50 per cent of our population would migrate to towns. "Prime Minister has told me that this is one of the big priority areas. He (PM) also said housing, drinking water, sanitation, transportation and livelihood they should be the mantras for my ministry," he stated.

Listing out the focus areas for the government and his ministry with regard to urban issues, he said "mission on smart satellite twin cities, mission on clean cities they will be our priority."

Responding to a question whether Modi has suggested that Gujarat model be implemented in other states as well in relation with Urban Development Ministry, Naidu said "better performance or experience is there in each state and they have to be repeated in other states.

Gujarat is one state that has done much headway as far as urban development is concerned, we will be always looking to different states for good practices, good experiences to be replicated...."