Mumbai: The elections of 83,000 Cooperative Housing Societies (CHS) having up to 250 members in Maharashtra has been deferred yet again till April 30.
This is because the cooperation department staff is busy with the implementation of much ambitious crop loan waiver scheme. The government earlier had deferred the election up to January 31 and then up to February 29 due to administrative reasons. The government on Tuesday released notification on deferring the elections up to April 30.
The government had planned to hold elections last year but due to the announcement of state assembly election it could not complete the process of seeking suggestions and objections from various stakeholders on rules pertaining to the elections.
The government issued notification on September 7 declaring the postpone of elections of 83,000 CHS having 250 members till January 31 last year.
Meanwhile, the government received suggestions and objections on the draft rules on elections, however, it could not prepare final rules because the cooperation department staff was busy in legislative work during the winter session of the state legislature held between December 16 and 21, 2019 in Nagpur.
The staff's bandwidth was consumed in the preparation of the crop loan waiver scheme which the MVA government announced on December 21 last year in the state legislature.
Besides, the delay in the formation of the government and in the allocation ministry portfolios further delayed the process of finalizing the election rules.
Following the third postponement it won't be possible to finalize the rules for at least two months to hold elections of CHS.
Advocate Naresh Pai, who is associated with housing society matters, said the entire working of societies has come to a standstill as a result of the inordinate delay. '' Societies are unable to take repairing and redevelopment, which forms the part of policy decision,” noted Pai.
