Indian Express 24.04.2010
94 hopefuls for one house, gap huge in higher categories
Express News Service Tags : affordable housing, mumbai Posted: Saturday , Apr 24, 2010 at 0141 hrs
Mumbai: Following the verification of applications received for its next lot of 3,449 houses to be allotted by lottery, the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) on Friday released figures that showed that 94 applicants are jostling for every single affordable house built by the board.
However, the discrepancy between houses and applicants is the least in the category of the economically weaker section (EWS), with only 35 in queue for each house. Against this, for every single house in slightly better-off categories, there are a disproportionate number of applicants — it’s a glaring 383 in the lower income group (LIG), 347 in the middle income group (MIG) and 284 in the higher income group (HIG) for each house.
MHADA officials admitted that the number of applicants in the higher categories were overwhelming. “This is typical of consumer behaviour. If a house worth Rs 80 lakh in Versova is being made available for half the price, it will naturally attract a lot of people,” one of them said.
A total of 6,370 applications were rejected due to duplication or incomplete data. The official said the list of selected applicants across categories would be put up on the MHADA website soon. “This time the entire work from collection of forms to handing over of keys has been outsourced to a private bank. The interface with the MHADA staff will be limited to holding appeals for applicants at a later stage.”
The official said once the draw of lots is held on May 18, the procedure of handing over the houses would be completed by the end of this year.
Playing it safe this time around, MHADA added a disclaimer in forms warning people about a problem with water supply in most new colonies owing to the BMC’s thrift measures in view of the overall water scarcity in Mumbai.
As a result, the new houses in areas like Malwani in Malad will be getting water supply only after December this year while others like Turbe-Mandala would be getting a steady supply only after December 2011.
