The Delhi Development Authority is treading a cautious path ahead of the launch of Housing Scheme ’08 — among its biggest offerings of 5,010 flats — and is firm on keeping the allotment process transparent and error-free. The civic agency has been flooded with enquiries ever since it announced that the paperwork for the allotment, ultimately through a random draw of lots, will begin from August 6. During the last housing scheme in 2006, the agency drew odds of 64 applications for one house. And many wanted to know if the process was fair. The man at the helm of the allotment, Deputy Director (Systems) Housing V S Tomar, said: “The DDA has allotted flats through a draw for the last 25 years now and has often assisted other civic bodies on similar procedures. The system is foolproof and monitored by neutral judges who are not part of the DDA.” Here is what happens once an applicant has filled in the form, submitted it and the verification procedure is complete. Tomar explained the first step after verification would be the “randomisation of applicants and flats”. This essentially means that the location of all flats up for sale and the names of applicants are fed into the software in two separate lists. The software then shuffles both lists. “This way we ensure there is no clear or apparent pattern in the list. We don't want people to say that those who purchased the forms first were allotted houses first,” Tomar said. The separate randomised lists are then showed to the “judges” who sign them in order to ensure that nobody can change the lists once they have been randomised. The DDA invites 3 to 4 judges, usually a senior journalist, a senior bureaucrat, a technology professor, a member of the Central Bureau of Investigation or a retired judge. The judges monitor the entire allotment procedure. Members of the DDA’s in-house vigilance department also watch the process though they are not part of the panel of judges. The panel will be announced nearly 15 days before the allotment date. Tomar said: “Once the lists are prepared, the judges also test the software and the computers being used so that there can be no tweaking of the lists.” On D-day — the announcement of results — members of the public, senior DDA officials, the judges and vigilance department officials, assemble at the DDA's headquarters Vikas Sadan. Tomar said: “The draw begins by picking two lucky numbers first — one each for an applicant and another for the flat he gets. If there are two lakh applicants, which is a six digit number, six boxes containing coins from 0 to 9 are placed before the judges. The judges choose one coin from each box, and the numbers put together, is the number of the first allottee. Similarly, there are four boxes for flats (since 5,010 is a four-digit number). The judges pick one coin from each to identify the corresponding flat for the winner. However, this exercise is done only once in order to find a reference point for the computers. Once fed with this data, called the ‘lucky numbers’, the computer knows from where it has to begin the draw. It then pulls out winners for each of the flats — the process is known as mapping of applicants and flats.” Applicants list out five choices in order of preference and efforts are made to ensure that their first choices are accommodated. “If a person has listed Dwarka as his first choice and Narela as second, and all flats in Dwarka have already been allotted, then odds are the Narela flats will go to those who have given that location as first choice. But for various reasons it is not always possible to stick to the choices,” Tomar said. Playing it safe* All application forms are thoroughly verified after submission* Judges are chosen to monitor the allotment process* Applicants and flats are “randomised”* Lucky numbers are picked * Applicants & flats mapped to decide final allotment for each flat* The draw will take place later this year or early 2009
