India’s $3.5 Billion Zombie-Home Experiment Starts to Pay Off
- SWAMIH fund to deliver 4,000 homes in year starting April 1
- Offers 12% return to investors including LIC, government, SBI
This article is for subscribers only.
A 250-billion-rupee ($3.5 billion) fund set up by India’s government to complete stalled housing projects is set to deliver its first finished apartments in 2021, offering a template for a problem that has washed out savings of thousands of home buyers and bankrupted developers.
The fund will hand over some 16 projects or more than 4,000 homes in the financial year starting April 1, said Irfan A. Kazi, chief investment officer at SBICAP Ventures Ltd., the government-appointed manager of the alternative investment fund. The ‘Special Window for Completion of Construction of Affordable and Mid-Income Housing Projects’ (SWAMIH) fund was announced in November 2019.