MHADA kicks off jubilee party

Swadheen Kshatriya, vice-president, agreed that there was a dismal response to its High Income Group (HIG) housing scheme at Oshiwara, Andheri and Powai. Recently the prices of theseunits were substantially reduced. Yet, nearly 1600 units remain unsold.

A glimmer of hope has come from public sector companies like ONGC, several nationalised banks, the Coast Guard, various state and Central government undertakings who have shown their willingness to buy these units bulk and with it avail of a discount of 10 per cent. Said Kshatriya, “Nearly Rs 350 crore is blocked in these unsold flats and we expect to recover this in this year.”

MHADA plans to utilise about 20 hectares of land it has acquired at Matulya Mills, Modern Mills and Mumbai Gas compounds to build around 2,000 housing units for low income and middle income group (LIG & MIG). The LIG flats will admeasure 225 sq ft carpet area and MIG flats will range between 350 to 500 sq ft area. Also, nearly 10,000 tenements including 4,500 earmarked for free sale are coming up at Mankhurd, Sion and Wadala.

At present MHADA has in its possession eight hectares at Tilak Nagar, Chembur and Pant Nagar, Ghatkopar (east) besides 4.5 hectaresat Dindoshi and eight hectares at Malwani. Around 50 hectare of its land is blocked either under No Development Zone (NDZ) or Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) mainly at Charkop, Kandivli and Gorai in the northern suburbs.

Referring to another fallout of MHADA’S cash crunch, Avachat today revealed that it would not be possible to refund money to nearly 6,000 persons who had leased its land under a World Bank aided scheme over a decade ago and have not been given possession of the land since it was affected by CRZ.

“We will require around Rs 150 crore to this refund. Union Minister Suresh Prabhu has assured us of a decision within a month on allowing a portion of the blocked land for use,” he said.

MHADA offered Rs 300 crore to the Shivshahi Punarvasan Prakalp (SPP) for free housing for slumdwellers recently while it has kept its leaseholders their rightful refunds on hold for years. “No, we have kept that money in deposit and are not touching it,” said Kshatriya. He, however, refused to reveal how muchsurplus funds the authority has.

The housing authority, which started off as the Bombay Housing Board in 1949, had built its first LIG colony at Ram Krishna Nagar followed it up with Adarsh Nagar, Ambedkar Nagar and Burma Shell gas workers’ colony at Chembur in early 1950s.

Outside Mumbai, this year MHADA plans begin construction on 10,000 LIG tenements. Moreover, talks are on with several financial institutions and banks like Dena Bank, CanFin and HDFC over easier sanctioning of housing loans. To facilitate greater utilisation of its schemes, the provision of accompanying the applications with certificates/documents will be done away with. The paper will have to be provided during the stage of allotment of the tenement, informed Kshatriya.

In response to a question, the vice-president stated that he had made a strong plea with the Centre to consider Mumbai as a special case while determining the norms to classify society on basis of income adding that the cut off earning level of Rs 7,000 and above forhigh income group (HIG) was indeed low.