12 December,2009 09:23 AM IST | | Varun Singh
One bank will handle everything from allotment of forms to refunding money
On December 15, application forms for MHADA houses will be available. Five months later, begins the lottery. That is the norm.
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What is not, is that, this year, Mhada has outsourced everything to the Saraswat Cooperative Bank, which will be responsible for the distribution and collection of forms, the processing and data entry, collecting the deposit and even allotment of the form a single-window solution to everything.
Five banks Axis, ICICI, HDFC, Maharashtra Co-operative Bank and Saraswat Co-op Bank had applied to the authority, but Saraswat was selected, as the bank fulfilled the mandate of having more than 45 branches.
"We do not have enough manpower to do all the work on our own and people queue up outside our office, which is problematic.
As there are more than 45 branches, the work will be distributed easily and the crowd can be handled better," said a senior officer from Mhada.
Last year, MHADA, had earned nearly Rs 4 crore as interest from the sale of forms, while it earned Rs 200 crore from deposit money.
This year, MHADA is expected to earn more than Rs 250 crore as deposit money and the cost of the form. Of this, Rs 10 crore is expected to come from the sale of 10 lakh forms costing Rs 100 each.
And finally, there's good news for the applicants. Last year, MHADA had announced that they would refund the money of unsuccessful applicants within a month.
However, few got the refund in time. This year, MHADA is using the ECS system and the money will be transferred to the applicant's savings bank account within 48 hours.
4.34 Lakh
Number of applicants who had applied for a MHADA house last year
7.5 Lakh
Number of forms that were sold
Rs 17.65
Cost of printing each application form and booklet sold to the public for Rs 100
