To act as a national resource centre and repository on urban poverty, slums, housing, building construction and related statistics, networked with similar resource centres at State and Urban Local Body levels and internationally.

To collect, collate, validate, analyse, disseminate and publish data on building construction, housing and other related statistics and statistical reports from time to time.

To bring out compendiums on urban poverty, slums, housing and building construction statistics and applied research publications analyzing statistical data gathered from various sources such as the Census, NSSO etc.

To create and manage a fully computerized data centre equipped with appropriate systems and e-governance tools to store, manage, retrieve and disseminated urban data as and when needed for policies and programmers;

To conduct regular short-term sample survey/field studies in various pockets of the country to study the impacts of plan schemes being run by the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs and other Ministries and to gather primary data as needed;

To undertake socio-economic research relating to design, formulation, implementation, monitoring, review and impact evaluation of policies, plans, programmers and projects covering areas such as slum development/up gradation, affordable housing and basic services to the urban poor;

To develop a documentation centre relating to urban poverty, slums, housing, building construction, and related urban statistics which can function as a repository of urban resources, including best practices and innovations;

To organize capacity building/training programmes for the officers and staff of State Government and Urban Local Bodies engaged in collection and dissemination of primary data on building construction and housing related activities;

To coordinate and collaborate with State Government/Municipal Authorities/Research & Training institutions/Statistical Institute/International Organisations as nodal agency catering to data and MIS needs of urban policy-makers, planners and researchers in areas relating to urban poverty, slums, housing etc.