The Indian Express 22.08.2012
Rental housing scheme: 3,000 units empty as MMRDA awaits clarity
Around 3,000 tenements for the ambitious rental housing scheme - which had started off on shaky ground - to check proliferation of slums in Mumbai metropolitan region are ready after a long delay but are still unoccupied. The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) implementing the scheme is unsure of how to allocate the houses to the public and is awaiting more clarity from the state government, in the form of a formal order.
Earlier this year, a committee chaired by MMRDA Commissioner Rahul Asthana had made some recommendations to the state government and suggested that the nature of the project be changed to affordable housing with just 15 percent of the total stock to be put out on rent. In a high-level meeting on May 9, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan accepted most of the recommendations, but a formal order has not been drafted to this effect.
“The state government hasn’t given formal approval to the recommendations, based on which we can start allocating the tenements. We have been routinely following up. No specific reason has been assigned for the delay,” said Uma Adusumilli, chief of MMRDA’s rental housing cell.
The MMRDA had taken possession of about 1,500 of the 3,000 houses in June this year and has been paying maintenance and security ever since.
A senior MMRDA official said, “Another 1,500 houses are also ready, but the MMRDA was trying to defer taking possession because then the authority will have to maintain them. After all, it’s the state’s money being used for this. But the MMRDA will have to take possession soon because how long will the developer keep the houses with him?”
Houses constructed so far are part of two rental housing projects in Thane in Vartak Nagar and Manpada. The project at Vartak Nagar, dubbed Dosti Vihar, has 1,492 rental tenements in four buildings along with 32 shops, four balwadis, four welfare centres and four cabins for caretakers. The MMRDA is yet to take possession of these. The Manpada project, Dosti Imperia, has contributed 1,429 houses in five buildings to MMRDA’s rental stock.
The rental housing scheme was launched in 2008 to prevent growth of slums by constructing and renting out 160 square feet houses with rents ranging from Rs 800 to Rs 1,500. The MMRDA had set a target of five lakh units in five years.
