It is the midday lunch rush at the Shiv Shambu Coffee Bar, a juice and snack stall on an upmarket Ahmedabad street. Aakash Sant, a loan officer from India’s Micro Housing Finance Corporation, is snapping pictures of the stall and Devisingh Rathod, its 26-year-old owner, as he serves a crowd of young IT workers and shoppers in Gujarat’s largest city.

A migrant from rural Rajasthan, living in rented accommodation with his father, a restaurant waiter, Mr Rathod has applied for a five-year home loan from MHFC of Rs300,000 (￡3,210). He wants to buy a small flat in an affordable housing project and bring his wife and young son from the village to the city.

Father-and-son have already saved Rs260,000 for a downpayment on the Rs564,000 one-bedroom unit. Photos of Mr Rathod’s stall, and details of its operations, will be a crucial part of their application for an MHFC loan. “Every man should own his home,” Mr Rathod says. “In your own home, you are the master.”