The Reserve Bank has revised the Priority Sector Lending, PSL guidelines for housing loans with Affordable Housing definition under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

The apex bank said that housing loans of up to 35 lakh rupees for dwellings costing less than 45 lakh rupees, will be treated as priority sector lending to give a fillip to the low-cost segment. Pur correspondent reports that PSL are relatively cheaper than market interest rate.

An announcement in this regard was made in the ‘Statement on Developmental and Regulatory Policies’ released along with the Second Bi-Monthly Monetary Policy on June 6.

There is a condition however that the overall cost of the dwelling unit in the metropolitan centre should not exceed Rs 45 lakh and Rs 30 lakh at other centres for being classified as priority sector.

The RBI has further revised existing family income limit of Rs 2 lakh per annum for loans to housing projects for Economically Weaker Sections and Low Income Groups.

It has been revised to Rs 3 lakh per annum and Rs 6 lakh per annum, respectively. This has been done in alignment with the income criteria specified under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.