Ahmedabad: Student survey finds 14.82% houses vacant

Students of Anant National University have taken a step ahead to solve the housing problem in the city. As part of their semester project, students attempted to find out the reasons behind 14.82 per cent vacant houses in the city, as per the India Infrastructure Report 2018.

Speaking about the report, Kavya Tibrewal from ANU said, "The growth of manufacturing plants and factories on the periphery of Ahmedabad has led to development of large housing complexes in these areas, many of which, though having been bought, remain unoccupied."

Sharing details, the students who analysed the Dhobi market said, "We surveyed 22 houses in detail and found that they were never consulted before the rehabilitation and resettlement scheme came into the picture. We found that the rehabilitated houses were given at a far off location due to which people preferred not to move to their new houses."

Professor Madhu Bharti of CEPT university said, "While the government introduced affordable housing schemes, however, until and unless transport reaches those areas, they are of no use. For example, a building accomodating 100 houses is built in an area under the affordable housing scheme and only 50 have been sold out, of which 30 have been occupied by residents. So rest of the 20 houses are bought for investment purpose and the remaining 50 which are not sold is due to lack of transportation facility. One cannot expect a person to commute via cabs every day."

"For us, the 14,7 per cent vacancy is high as of the 18 million population, 15 million are required for the EWS segment," she said.

IN-DEPTH

Ahmedabad has one of the largest stocks of vacant houses. Students along with Center for Sustainability at ANU conducted survey covering 3114 housing units in Ahmedabad, of which 585 homes were vacant.