Reuben Abraham, Kshitij Batra and Sahil Gandhi write in Mint, about why the government must focus on the pervasive supply-side constraints that make housing unnaffordable. 

"....Most housing policies in India have got the sequencing wrong by trying to tackle symptoms—such as by providing small-scale subsidies for home loans—rather than the root causes. A dramatic change in approach is needed to first ease the supply-side constraints that will allow the market to provide a lot more housing stock. Government should address the legacy of distortionary policies that affect the entire market, before launching new schemes that are both more ambitious and harder to execute. Putting the demand-side cart before the supply-side horse is not likely to get us any closer to the cherished dream of universal housing."