In what could come as a huge relief to homebuyers, SBICap Ventures-managed stressed asset fund has cleared investments worth Rs 1300 crore after approving around 20 new proposals. At least four new projects have received funding over the last one month.
In July, the government announced that it had approved funding of over Rs 8,700 crore for 81 stressed housing projects, with as many as 27 in Mumbai and 26 in Delhi-NCR, under the Rs 25,000 crore stressed-asset fund set up in 2019.
"This takes the total number of proposals approved for the Special Window for Completion of Construction of Affordable and Mid-Income Housing Projects (SWAMIH) to 101 and the total investments to over Rs 10,000 crore. The total number of buyers who will benefit from the funding will be more than 70,000," said Irfan A Kazi, chief investment officer, SWAMIH Investment Fund.
"We have managed to achieve this despite the lockdown," he said.
As many as 22 projects with more than 20,000 homebuyers have already started receiving funds, Kazi said at a conference organized by Credai’s Karnataka chapter.
The ministry of environment has also issued a circular that states that any project funded by SWAMIH wherein the environment approval is expiring during the course of the year will automatically get extended up to March 31.
These projects are spread across a mix of markets including large cities such as NCR, MMR, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune and also Tier 2 locations including Karnal, Panipat, Lucknow, Surat, Dehradun, Kota, Nagpur, Jaipur, Nashik, Vizag, Chandigarh, the finance ministry had said in a statement last month.
While reviewing the performance of the Special Window for Affordable and Mid Income Housing (SWAMIH), the finance minister last month had underlined the need for speedy efforts to complete construction of projects for which last mile funding has been sanctioned, the ministry statement had said.
"This special window was an unprecedented initiative that has provided extraordinary support to the real estate sector and poised it at the cusp of a turnaround despite such turbulent economic times," the minister had said.
The alternative investment fund (AIF), was set up in November last year to provide last-mile funding for stalled real estate projects by the government.
The fund was to help complete over 1,500 stalled housing projects, including even those that have been declared NPAs (non-performing assets) or admitted for insolvency proceedings. The move is likely to help 4.58 lakh housing units across the country. Only RERA-registered projects with positive net worth will be provided funds.
The recent initiative by the Fund to reduce the cost of capital to 12 percent has resulted in an increase in the number of projects that meet the funding criteria laid out under the Special Window, the ministry statement had said in July.
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