Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation M Venkaiah Naidu has said Budget has made the house buyer the King by incentivizing the developers and catalyzing investment flows through several concessions and incentives to affordable housing sector. <br/><br/>Speaking to media in New Delhi today, he elaborated on the thrust given to housing sector in the Budget and their implications by way of increased options to buyers to own a house. Mr Naidu said the governments thrust to affordable housing is an indication of its commitment to ensure social justice and equality under its inclusive development approach. <br/><br/>He said with affordable housing getting infrastructure status, large public sector investors like Employee Provident Fund Organisation and Insurance Firms will now invest in housing as they are mandated to invest specified portion of their funds in infrastructure projects. The Minister further said various other incentives announced in the Budget for next fiscal will incentivize producers in the form of low interest loans, tax benefits. He said increased availability of resources to housing sector will increase the options of owning a house. <br/><br/>Mr Naidu asserted that the housing boom will return further to large scale interventions both on supply and demand side. He said government is providing central assistance in the range of one lakh to 2.30 lakh rupees per beneficiary belonging to economically weaker sections, low income groups and middle income groups under Prime Minister Awas Yojana (Urban) and similar support for housing in rural areas. <br/><br/>Mr Naidu informed that under PMAY(Urban) more than 15.6 lakh affordable houses have been sanctioned in urban areas with an investment of 84 thousand crore rupees.