Carry out survey in transit camps: State to MHADA

The Maharashtra government has directed the MHADA to conduct a biometric survey of residents in transit camp homes to determine their eligibility and status. The survey will help the government make decisions on the rehabilitation of residents. This is the second survey of its kind, with the previous one in 2010 identifying ineligible and unauthorized residents in transit camps.

The state government has asked the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) to conduct a biometric survey of the people living in its 20,700 transit camp homes to find out the eligible, ineligible and illegal occupants.

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“The MHADA will use the information available in Aadhaar and will use the e-KYC system to verify and register the details of the residents so that they could be divided into three categories of A, B and C, according to their status of eligible, ineligible and unauthorised,” the housing authority said in a statement on Wednesday night.

This survey will help the state government take a policy decision on the rehabilitation of these residents, it said.

“As per an order issued in 2019, those in category A are eligible to get free-of-cost homes in the redevelopment of transit camps as they are the original residents of cess buildings. Residents in category B are described as ineligible but they will get homes under rehabilitation schemes after paying the cost of construction and infrastructure. Those in C category are unauthorised occupants and on sympathetic grounds they will get houses after paying the cost of construction and infrastructure plus the penalty. But now it has been more than four years, and the state will make its decision after receiving the biometric survey report,” an official from MHADA, who did not wish to be named, said.

According to officials, this would be the second such survey after 2010 to decide the status of residents living in transit camps. At that time, the MHADA had carried out an inspection and found that 8,448 tenements in the transit camps were occupied by ineligible and unauthorised residents.

As per the MHADA Act, 1977, there is a provision for relocating tenants/residents to transit camps upon demolition of a cessed building which is beyond repairs.