 I'm here from Secretary Chaitreya and you've got 10 minutes to make your presentation and I will be disciplined, so work with me. How do you operate this? Well, both my co-chamens and colleagues in the panel, friends, I'm the principal housing secretary for government of Maharashtra and I'm very happy that this conference has been organized in the city of Mumbai. On behalf of my state government, I extend you a warm welcome. I see some of my colleagues are also here, so I'm sure they must have spoken to you in the morning. The point on the housing policy for the government of Maharashtra is something which I thought I would be making a presentation in about 10 minutes. This is a new policy which we have laid before the legislature on 23rd of July 2007 and it's going to come up for debate in the month of November when we have the winter session and they're going to tear the housing policy to pieces. So I thought let me have some rehearsal here today before I prepare for the supplementary questions over there. The focus of the housing policy is not as revolutionary as Mr. Nasir Munji was hoping and mentioning it should be because the bureaucrat and the government has to function within certain constraints thrown up by democracy and coalition government and also the opinion makers, the NGOs and the press. So within that constraint we are trying to formulate and present a policy. The focus of this policy is going to be how do you provide affordable housing? It's not that houses are not available. Houses are available even in this city today and in other cities of my state but they are not affordable particularly to the low income, to the middle income and to the economically weaker sections of the society. Now this policy is based on a national policy which says that the focus has to be on these sections of the society. The higher income groups are capable of taking care of the market situation. Yes, there is a need for a lot of reforms and liberalization and I think this would hold good for all the developing countries because they would be having similar kinds of problem. He mentioned the urban land sealing act, the rent act and I'm sure all countries, all societies would have certain legacies thrown up by World War II or migration to textile factories and you've got to set right all those situations. So you've got to go in for a scenario in which there will be a lot of reforms and liberalization. Why is this situation as it is as was described that the gap between what is required in housing and the availability seems to be growing day by day. It's because the supply is limited because not only of the laws, legislation but also because the players in this area are extremely limited. There are a few groups that perhaps may be situation in other cities also who virtually control the supply and demand situation in my state as well as in my city that we are discussing today. We've got to break this scenario. We've got to throw up a lot of players. We've got to encourage competition and yes, we have to go in for liberalization and also simplification of procedures and processes. Then we also have to deregulate and the government has to, in our opinion, agree that the sole provider role of the government has not been successful. And therefore from the role of a provider, this policy says that governments will have to move towards the role of a facilitator with the role of an enabler and basically encourage competition, encourage people to come forward in this sector. So how do you begin this kind of a task? The task has to, in our opinion, begin with the constitution of a task force, begin the process of dialogue. Ask all stakeholders in this housing sector as to what is it that they would have suggestions. So this process began in my state in August 2006 and we had representatives from various organizations and state groups participate. Why is there a need for housing sector policy is I think well known but I would just give some figures for my state and for my country that while when we became independent in 1947 we used to say India resides in villages but it's not true now. In my state, for example, 42% population is already in the urban areas and the prediction is that in about another 10 to 15 years it may touch 50% of the population coming to the urban areas. So if this is going to be the pace as to which migration is taking place and it's taking place in a much more rapid manner in the state that we are all assembled today called the state of Maharashtra. This is a federal country and we have the states over here. So while the national average is 27% coming to urban areas, this state is recording 42% about a decade ago. And what happens in this kind of a situation is that the affordable housing is not available. So you have huge squatters, colonies, slums, you may call it by various names and Dharavi is I think the best example of this kind of a situation and I'm not going to dwell at length because two of my colleagues are going to present in detail what they would have. And in this situation the city has a population, 54% of the population is adding in slums. And you have another 20 to 25% of the population living in buildings which are old, which are dilapidated and which are being declared dangerous for human habitation. Now you have to set the objectives and in that objectives we have said that apart not only affordable housing but we'll plan for making cities without slums. But that doesn't mean the bulldozer will be there as you were saying. We have moved a far long way from that and our policy is we are going to provide in situ rehabilitation to the slum dwellers wherever they are residing except when the land is required for a vital public project like an airport or a road or maybe a railway line. And in order to do that we are going to encourage the deregulation and we are going to encourage rental housing. Rental housing was a feature of this city when the textile industry was growing and rental housing was easily available. But today the situation is that people are not confident to give the premises on rent because they are not sure, the landlord is not sure whether he'll get back the premises when he needs it. And there are certain restrictions of how much rent can be charged and how much rent can be enhanced. We have also said that the urban renewal is a major problem that we have to look into and the infrastructure has to match with the requirement of housing and unfortunately what is happening is that while housing stocks are created, infrastructure is left to the government or to the municipal local authority. That has to change and you have to ensure that part of the housing project benefits which people are likely to get in terms of the contractors, builders and developers, part of it will go to a dedicated fund of infrastructure. The strategy will be, as I said, the government plays the role of a provider so we have various schemes to incentivize housing. We say that if you come for housing to the lower income groups or social housing you'll be entitled for a higher floor space index. The taxes will be lower on that. So these kind of incentives are being planned and also we are thinking in terms of, there are certain innovative measures which we have devised. I would not take much of your time because my chairman is also indicating that I have to wind up in another two minutes. But there are two instruments. One is using land as a resource. How do you use land as a resource? Because this is a problem. Everyone says that affordable housing has to be provided but how do you do it? The resources are not available with developing countries. There the real estate boom has now provided an opportunity of how the land can itself be used as a resource. And there is also a concept of TDR, transfer of development rights whereby it can flow from one direction to another. During the discussion maybe I'll point it out in greater details. Policy reforms we have already discussed. I think what I would do is I will just go to the last point which I thought I'll mention over here that Dharavi we are going to discuss but in addition to that you'll have to have a policy of encouraging special townships because the city will have carrying capacity will have a limit of how much it can absorb the arrival of the new population nor can you say that you're not going to allow the new population arrival into the city. But you have to now develop satellite townships. You have to have a special township policy and provide very good means of communication from the new townships coming to the. The foreign direct investment has been opened up by the government of India into housing sector. 100% foreign direct investment is now permitted. This provides another opportunity of trying to assure in the revolution which Mr. Nassir Mujee was mentioning by allowing lot of modern technology and international players to come into this sector. And the last is I would mention is that the cluster approach or the integrated township approach is something which is necessary instead of going in for a piecemeal development which really creates more problems than solving it you've got to have an integrated and a cluster approach. I think I mentioned your time. Thank you. Mr. Secretary you are.