Gujarat Housing Board

The Gujarat Housing Board was set up on 1st May, 1960 as a result of the splitting up of the Bombay Housing Board and the Bombay State and with the merging of the Saurashtra Housing Board.

In the state of Gujarat, the Gujarat Housing Board undertakes activities related to housing according to the provisions laid out in the Gujarat Housing Board Act of 1961. The jurisdiction of the Housing Board in Gujarat extends to all urban areas in the state which includes the municipal councils, municipal corporations, and town panchayats. In the entire state, the Gujarat Housing Board has built around 176,754 houses.

The various objectives of the Gujarat Housing Board are:

• To construct houses for the various categories such as the high income group, middle income group, and the low income group under various schemes
• To construct school buildings, shopping complexes, dispensaries, and hospitals
• To select the sites for the construction of the houses and to decide the services to be provided in the houses
• To plan schemes to help in the financing of the high and middle income groups
• To construct commercial complexes, shops, and multi storied buildings so that they can be rented out so as to secure financial resources for the board.
  
  The various members of the Gujarat Housing Board include a chairman and 10 board members. The head office of the Gujarat Housing Board is situated in Ahmedabad. The various places where the Gujarat Housing Board have branch offices are:
  • Surat
  • Baroda
  • Jamnagar
  • Bhavnagar
  • Bhuj
  • Rajkot
  Gujarat Housing Board has been able to fulfill its aim to a certain extent by providing houses to the needy, but there is still scope for improvement in this domain. For this to happen, the Gujarat state government and the government of India need to make a concerted effort.