SWAMIH Fund to Deliver 4000 Flats This Year

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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. At the time, India had an estimated $63 billion of such stalled projects as an economic slowdown and a credit crisis cascaded through the sector. Builders were unable to service their loans, forcing banks to write off the debts and worsen what was already one of the world’s biggest bad-loan piles. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government created the fund as one measure to unclog the financing pipes.