Hardeep Singh Puri is the current Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. He took charge of this office in September 2017.

Puri is a 1974-batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer who served as India's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2009 to 2013 and was the vice president of the International Peace Institute, New York.

He has served a four-decade long career in diplomacy, in which he served critical roles as India's ambassador to Brazil and the United Kingdom, and Permanent Representative of India to Geneva. He is an alumni of the Hindu College, Delhi University, and worked as a lecturer at St. Stephen's College, Delhi, before joining the IFS. Puri is a published author of several books, research papers, and journals.

Talking about the Smart Cities Mission, Puri told media that transforming entire existing cities has never been done in the history of the world. "You can build new cities over time, but fixing old cities requires a strategic vision and a carefully planned outlay of resources," he added.

At a recent event in Delhi, the minister said that with the affordable housing mission, India has undertaken the most comprehensive and planned urbanization programme in the world. Adding that till the year 2030, about 700 to 900 million sq. metres of urban space would have to be developed every year in order to accommodate 40% of the total Indian population.

In another media interview held prior, Puri said that the government would complete its target of building 11 million homes under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna much before 2022.

Puri has also emphasized on the need of making India more geospatial savvy. Geospatial technology can help in resource allocation, decongestion, better planning, identifying specific problem areas, and faster solutions. It gives us a chance to converge efforts to make every project a success, said Puri in a media interview.