Maharashtra Winter Session: Reduce SRA house selling timeframe to 5 years, demands Varsha Gaikwad

File Photo

Mumbai Congress President and Dharavi MLA Varsha Gaikwad, on Friday, urged the state government that the timeframe to sell slum rehabilitation authority (SRA) houses be reduced to five years.

At present, the rule states that people cannot sell the houses allotted in the SRA scheme for 10 years. A bill to amend the rule and bring the duration down to seven years is slated to be tabled in the assembly in the ongoing winter session.

"Due to economic constraints, people live in slums. Since slums are unauthorised, the court sends notices. Considering this, when is the government going to bring in the MahaRERA Act? When the bill is tabled, there should be proper discussion on it," Varsha Gaikwad demanded.

While speaking in Vidhan Sabha in Nagpur, Varsha Gaikwad said that the decision to bar the sale of houses in 10 years was taken to prevent the unauthorised construction of slums.

"But due to hand to mouth existence of the poor owing to health and other daily issues, they become helpless and have to sell off their houses. Eventually, houses are sold through malpractices and after a while, through surveys, such houses are issued eviction notices by the housing department. Due to this, the homebuyers suffer too," she said.

"People have to live in transit camps for ten years before they get houses. But the rent for accommodation is not provided. In such a situation, they are forced to sell houses. They should be looked at with sympathy. As a result, we demand a bill for five years. Can the Bill not be unanimously accepted and passed with the amendment from 7 years to 5 years?" Gaikwad asked.

Also read: Maharashtra Winter Session: Have we developed a 'reporting mechanism', asks Aaditya Thackeray on data leak

While responding to Gaikwad, Housing Minister Atul Save said legal counsel needs to be sought before coming to a decision on reducing the time frame. "Around 500 to 600 projects are stalled in the High Court, of which 200 projects have been directed to be decided on fastrack basis. The stalled projects will be cleared at the earliest," Save said.

Meanwhile, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray on Friday raised issue of Aadhaar data leak in the ongoing winter session of the Maharashtra Assembly.

Speaking in the Vidhan Bhavan in Nagpur, Aaditya Thackeray raised the issue and asked whether the government has developed any 'reporting mechanism' to take action against the culprits.

"There were reports suggesting that details of over 80 crore Aadhaar cards were leaked. People download many apps nowadays and their personal data can be breached from that. I want to ask the state government that is state government in co-ordination with the Central government developing a 'reporting mechanism' to take action against such apps and culprits", he asked.