3 Maharashtra CMs used their quota to give houses to kin,aides and journalists

The beneficiaries of Ashok Chavan’s largesse of High Income Group (HIG) apartments include his own relatives,personal secretaries of political heavyweights,a Congress leader from Chavan’s home town of Nanded,the cousin of a NCP minister,the sister of a Congress MP and even the son-in-law of a Shiv Sena MLA,data accessed by The Sunday Express shows.

Besides these 118 apartments,Chavan also allotted 200 apartments in MHADA’s public housing project in Versova to the Rajyog housing society for serving and former legislators,many of whom already own one or more apartments in Mumbai.

Chavan did not respond to calls,e-mails and faxes seeking his comment on the allotments.

MHADA officials said that there was an increase in the allotment of apartments built by the agency in Mumbai after a April 2004 judgment by the Bombay High Court put an end to the discretionary allotment of MHADA plots in the city by the state government. The Sunday Express had reported last month how under chief ministers Deshmukh and Shinde,MHADA was allowed to sell 20 hectares of land meant for public housing in Mumbai,including to trusts belonging to politicians.

Records show that more than half the 221 apartments given away between 2003 and 2010 were HIG apartments. During the same period,a mere 12 apartments meant for the economically weaker sections were allotted through this quota. The houses constructed by MHADA are available for less than a quarter of the market rates of private residential projects. Every year,as the housing board holds its annual lottery for a couple of thousand houses,an overwhelming number of applications result in a skewed ratio of 50 to 100 applicants for each available house.