Government to allow interest subsidy for Noida and Greater Noida homebuyers

The government has announced that the homebuyers belonging to the middle-income group who are considering of purchasing flats in Noida and Greater Noida will soon start getting interest subsidies up to Rs. 2.5 lakh on their home loans under the Prime Minister Awas Yojna. As per a TOI report, the Uttar Pradesh government has sent the names of these two towns (Noida and Greater Noida) of the National Capital Region (NCR) to the housing and urban affairs ministry, to be included in the list of urban areas where the subsidy scheme is applicable. The National Housing Bank is responsible for administering the interest subsidies scheme for the cities. However, the same cannot be passed on to the homebuyers until the housing and urban affairs ministry allots particular code to the cities to which the scheme has to be applicable. Further, the ministry can allot the city codes only after the state government has approved the name of towns and cities that have to be covered under this scheme. The ministry has now issued the necessary codes for both the cities and the same has been forwarded to the National Housing Bank and Housing and Urban Development Corporation. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in December 2016 announced interest subsidy schemes for the homebuyers in urban areas. The interest subsidy benefit was extended to two sections of middle-income groups, i.e. 4% interest subsidy for the buyers having an annual income between Rs. 6 lakh to Rs. 12 lakh and 3% interest subsidy for people with annual income between Rs. 12 lakh to Rs. 18 lakh, applicable from January 2017. However, as the Uttar Pradesh state government did not send names of Noida and Greater Noida, the subsidy schemes were not applicable to these two cities. Agitated by the government's inaction, the homebuyers who were not able to avail the benefits, questioned the government that why they should be made to pay a higher price without any fault on their part. They also demanded that the benefit should be extended to those people who have purchased the flats since January last year.