Maharashtra: MHADA to alter its housing lottery process; click here to know more

The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) officials are working to alter its application procedure for the future affordable housing lottery draws.

In the new process, applicants will have to first prove their eligibility and then get the opportunity to check if luck is on their side to win an abode.

This means that the applicant will have to first submit all the documents that they otherwise were asked to submit after the lottery draw. This includes documents such as identity proof, address proof, income related documents, and papers pertaining to reservation categories (caste certificate, freedom fighter, elected representatives, artists, government employees, ex-servicemen, physically challenged, families of deceased defence personnel, etc.). All these documents will have to be submitted online.

Explaining the rationale behind the move, Milind Borikar, Chief Officer, Mumbai Housing and Area Development Board said, “Not only are we changing the process of scrutiny but also making changes to the lottery software to handle these many applications as it would involve minimum human interference.”

According to him, this process of getting the applications scrutinised prior to the lottery draw will help in expediting the allotment of affordable homes to the winners.

So far, during the initial stage, that is the pre-lottery draw stage, the applicants only had to fill in the required application form along with an earnest money deposit. After the applicant’s name got listed on winners and waiting lists, they were asked to submit eligibility documents for scrutiny. If anyone from the winning list failed to meet the eligibility criteria, the one's from the waiting list were given an opportunity.

With the change in procedure, the back-end team will have an onerous task to filter out applications. For this, support of data available with other government agencies will be taken. For example, Aadhar and Pan cards along with phone numbers will have to be submitted and with the integration of data with the respective government agencies, the verification will be done.