In a bid to give a demand-side push to domestic steel consumption, the Indian government is working on a scheme to offer a fiscal incentive for greater use of steel in affordable housing construction, an official at India's Ministry of Steel has said.
The steel ministry official said that the scheme overseen by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) will be framed within the overall framework of the prime minister’s “Housing for All” policy by 2022.
As per the tentative blue-print under consideration, affordable housing constructed with a pre-determined volume of steel content, thereby reducing the cost of construction with traditional material, will have a buy-back option.
This will entail that, after a certain years of use of such affordable housing, the owner or the builder will have the option to sell the housing to the government and receive a value 50 percent higher than the cost of construction of such housing, the official added.
While the government has laid down a policy roadmap to ramp up domestic steel production to 300 million mt per year by 2030, it is also the Ministry of Steel’s duty to lay down policies that will offer demand-side support for such higher steel production and the incentive for usage of steel in affordable housing is aligned with such goals, the official said.