The sponsor of the fund is the Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, on behalf of the Government of India.
Since the fund considers first-time developers, established developers with troubled projects, developers with a poor track record of stalled projects, customer complaints, and NPA accounts, and even projects with litigation issues, it is regarded as the lender of last resort for distressed projects.
A study by PropEquity, commissioned by SBI Ventures Ltd in 2019, estimated that about 1,500 projects with 4.58 lakh housing units were stalled or stressed and required aggregate funding of Rs 55,000 crore to complete the stalled projects.
In the upcoming Union Budget, real estate players expect increased fund allocation for stressed projects through the SWAMIH fund to improve liquidity in stressed residential developments.
Sharad Mittal, Founder & CEO of Arnya Real Estates Fund Advisors, said that on the financing front, developers seek easier access to credit and lower interest rates to ease liquidity challenges.
“Policies can be outlined for priority financing for affordable housing projects to incentivise the developers to take up such projects and bridge the demand-supply gap. Further investment through schemes such as SWAMIH (The Special Window for Affordable and Mid-Income Housing) to enable the completion of stuck projects will instil confidence in buyers to make purchase decisions,” stated Mittal.