Adequate shelter for all people is one of the crucial challenges faced by developing countries like India. In India by 2013, shortage of 30 million homes with almost 99% of the shortfall coming from families earning less than 2 lakhs rupees per year (EWS & LIG segment). According to census 2011, India has a 65 million slum population and by 2017 it will outreach 104 million. The country had a population of 1210.98 million, out of which 377.10(31.16%) live in urban areas. This growing concentration of people in urban areas has led to problems of land shortage, housing shortfall and has also several basic amenities such as water, power, and open spaces of towns and cities.

According to the RICS Report on Making Urban Housing Work in India, affordability in the context of urban housing means provision of “Adequate shelter” on a sustained basis, ensuring security of tenure within the means of the common urban household. As per US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the generally accepted definition of housing affordability is, for a household to pay no more than 30% of its annual income on housing. Families who pay more than 30% of their income for housing are considered cost burdened and may have difficulty affording necessities such as food, clothing, transportation and medical. According to the Task Force on Affordable Housing set up by the MHUPA in 2008, affordable housing for various segments is defined by size of the dwelling and housing affordability derived by the household income of the population. The JNNURM Mission Directorate of MHUPA has also defined affordable housing in its amended Guidelines for Affordable.