130 MHADA flats lying vacant under CM's quota

With a dearth of affordable homes in the city due to the shrinking land bank of Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA), this particular news will baffle you. Nearly 130 affordable MHADA flats accrued under the state government's quota are lying vacant (80 from last year and 50 from this year's lottery), as CM Prithviraj Chavan has relinquished his claim to the 2 per cent government quota, popularly known as the Chief Minister's quota.

The chief minister can allot up to 2 per cent flats constructed by MHADA in its affordable housing projects, but since Chavan took over as the CM he has kept himself away from all housing projects. Hence he gave up the discretionary quota on the CM flats too. However, every year MHADA has still been reserving flats for the lottery under the state government quota.

Flatly refused: Eighty flats from last year and 50 from this year's lottery are lying vacant. Since Prithviraj Chavan took over as the CM, he has kept himself away from all housing projects. File pics

This year too, MHADA has reserved 50 flats out of the 2,593 total homes up for lottery, which will be declared today at Bandra's Rangsharda auditorium. According to Vaishali Sandansingh, the chief PRO for MHADA, it's the state government representatives' duty to eliminate the quota from the lottery as per the provision. "We have set aside 50 flats like earlier years, and they are not up for sale. We do not take a call on these flats. It's the state's discretion to decide what to do with these flats and whom to allot to," she said.

Land shortage
Meanwhile, according to MHADA officials, they are already suffering from a shortage of flats, as there's a scarcity of land in Mumbai region. "We know the CM had decided to give up on his claim on the two per cent flats, but then something should be done, so that these flats are disbursed and homeless people are allotted the flats," said a MHADA official, on condition of anonymity.

Numbers game
Meanwhile, out of the 1.5 lakh applications received by MHADA for 2,593 homes, the authority is said to have rejected 11,179 total applications yesterday. 6,385 applications were filled in different income group. 3,995 applications were filled with the same account number, but with different names. 177 were rejected for having the same PAN card number, but different names. Four were rejected for filling wrong particulars on the Demand Draft, while one person's application was rejected for submitting 5 applications in one category.u00a0