The Indian Constitution has allocated responsibility for housing and urban development to the state; and the 74th amendment to the Constitution delegates some responsibility to the local governments. The ministry is responsible for the national capital territory of Delhi and union territories. It also provides finances through federal institutions and allocates resources to the state governments. The ministry supports the country's external housing and urban development assistance programs.
Building Materials and Technology Promotion Council
Central Government Employees Welfare Housing Organisation
National Cooperative Housing Federation of India
Principal Account Office
Sectors for improvement
For poverty alleviation programs to be successful, the following sectors should realise improvements: Income generation, health, shelter, education, environment and infrastructure. Environmental Improvement for Urban Slum, Urban Basic Service programs, Nehru Rozgar Yojana, Shelter and Infrastructural facilities, and Low Cost Sanitation Night Shelter are examples of schemes to meet these objectives. The Ministry has constituted a Committee on Streamlining Approval Procedures for Real Estate Projects under the Chairmanship of Dhanendra Kumar, former Chairman of Competition Commission of India. Amongst other things, the concept of single window clearance as advocated by this committee report draw parallels with government's effort towards improving ease of doing business in the country.
National programs and legislation
The Government of India has launched various programs since its independence, such as some of the five year plans, to alleviate poverty and address the widening income gap, both, amongst the upper and lower classes of society, and amongst the rural and urban parts of the country. For instance, the "Eighth Plan policy guidelines envisages integrated approach to alleviation of urban poverty and servicing the urban poor with basic facilities so that their quality of life improves." As trends in the Gini coefficient reflect, the income gaps were not as pronounced until the early 1980s, but the situation has been continually getting worse since. Misplaced priorities of the Indian Government and bad planning of subsidy programs is largely responsible for this. Hosting the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010 that cost the exchequer an approximate, excluding the price of non-sports related infrastructure, is a case in point. While newly launched programs like Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, National Rural Health Mission, Food Security Act, Mid-day Meals and Bharat Nirman Yojana have demonstrated success in the initial stages, their performance over the long-run still remains to be seen. The shortsightedness of the Indian government often leads it to launch populist programs that may not necessarily work well. Low-hanging fruit like increasing worker's minimum wage can go a long way in achieving the goal of poverty alleviation, but are yet to be taken up in spite of reminders from leading economists. On 6 September 2012 by the Union Minister, Kumari Selja, introduced to the Street Vendors Act, 2014 in the Lok Sabha.
Indian Green Building Council(IGBC) is country's premier body for green certification. IGBC supports both state and central governments at various stages. IGBC is leading the green building movement in India
