Mumbai: Those eager to purchase Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority's (MHADA) affordable homes will now have to wait longer, as its lottery draw will not be called for at least for a year and a half. Madhu Chavan, chairman of its Mumbai houses, said that the housing stock will be available only after the said period. Thereafter, the authority plans to conduct a lottery draw for nearly 1,000 houses. However, it did not elaborate on the location of these houses.
MHADA, due to insufficient housing stock earlier, had conducted a mini housing lottery draw. In 2019, a lottery for only 217 houses was called, for which about one lakh applicants showed their interest. The 217 houses were mostly received by the board as surplus housing stock from developers who undertook redevelopment projects.
Similarly, in 2018, it held the lottery draw for about 1,395 houses, and in 2017, 819 houses were kept for selling. Interestingly, the housing agency has received an overwhelming response each time for the handful of houses it provided to home buyers.
Furthermore, when asked how the authority is trying to cope up with the problem of insufficient housing stock, Chavan asserted that the proposed projects in Motilal Nagar at Goregoan, Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) Chawls redevelopment projects at three places --Worli, NM Joshi, and Naigaon-- and Pahadi Goregoan project will create ample stock to fulfil the increasing housing demand.
These projects will create thousands of housing stock, he asserted. According to MHADA, Motilal Nagar will generate 40,000 houses for the lottery. Similarly, at Pahadi Goregoan, it plans to develop a mini township, wherein approximately 5,000 houses will be built. Interestingly, even though the MHADA Mumbai board has proposed these housing projects, except Pahadi Goregaon no other project construction work has been started until now.
