Policy Briefs & Reports

With approximately 23 per cent of people in the state of Odisha residing in slums in the capital city of Bhubaneswar, there is an estimated shortage of 80,000 housing units, specifically among low-income families. Intending to bridge this gap, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) has embarked on the ambitious task of creating a roadmap for the production of 100,000 affordable housing units. As noted in previous policy documents of the Government of Odisha (e.g., “Policy for Housing for All in Urban Areas, Odisha, 2015”), this has indeed been a missing link in the housing situation in Bhubaneswar. Most of the new housing created in the last years has been in the HIG and MIG categories, with very few projects catering to the needs of the LIG and EWS categories. Since 2018, the Government of Odisha has made rapid strides in slum land titling and upgradation through its flagship Jaga Mission, but the numbers of new houses created in the LIG and EWS categories have remained meagre. While Bhubaneswar Development Authority’s current efforts are well designed to deliver on the identified projects in the area, creating impact at scale and tackling slums in the city necessitated formulating a new strategy as laid out in this document.