Housing, particularly for low income urban households, is a long-standing challenge in India. In 2012, 96 percent of  India’s urban housing shortage of 18.78 million was confined to low-income economic groups. This study empirically examines three facets of urban India’s housing demand using the latest available nationally representative household data on housing conditions. First, we estimate the urban housing shortage. Employing a methodology similar to that used by the Technical Group for the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (TG12) based on households that are physically inadequately housed, we find the shortage to be 29 million in 2018. However, the much-needed and sustained policy focus on slum housing, which is not restricted to physically inadequate slum houses, warrants a broader approach to estimating housing shortage. Employing a broader approach, we estimate the upper bound of urban housing shortage to be 50 million. We find more than 99 per cent of the shortage has been confined to low-income economic groups in 2018.