Buyers allege‘scam’ in employees’ housing project in Greater Noida

Homebuyers of the Central government employees’ welfare housing organisation’s (CGEWHO) housing project -- ‘Kendriya Vihar Greater Noida’ in pocket 4 -- on Saturday staged a protest against a delay in delivery of flats and also alleged a scam in altering the original layout of the project reportedly in violation of rules

Homebuyers of the Central government employees’ welfare housing organisation’s (CGEWHO) housing project -- ‘Kendriya Vihar Greater Noida’ in pocket 4 -- on Saturday staged a protest against a delay in delivery of flats and also alleged a scam in altering the original layout of the project reportedly in violation of rules. Around 100 home buyers reached gate number 1 of the project at 11am and raised slogans against the office-bearers of the CGEWHO committee, which is managing the project, before leaving the site at 3pm.

Buyers allege‘scam’ in employees’ housing project in Greater Noida

This project in Greater Noida was announced in 2011 and touted as the biggest dream project for Central government employees. “However the work at the site could start only in 2016 after a long delay, and it was assured that flats will be delivered by February 2021. But the project is still incomplete even though they have collected the total flat cost from buyers in March last year. The bigger issue is that they are illegally constructing villas costing upto ₹1.6 crore that a Central government employee cannot buy as per the service rules.It means making and selling villas in this project is unlawful by all means,” said former diplomat PC Mishra, who retired from the Indian embassy in Peru, and is leading the protest.

“They kept 30 acres for phase 1 and 8 acres for phase 2. But later, they moved 6 acres from phase 1 to phase 2 illegally, and launched the villa project on 14 acres. It cannot be done because they cannot change the land use like this,” added Mishra.

The home buyers’ group claimed that the CGEWHO had bought 38 acres land from the Greater Noida authority in 2011 with an aim to provide housing facilities to Central government employees in towers with a maximum of 14 floors. As per the layout plan, the society has on offer 1BHK, 2 BHK, 3 BHK and 4BHK flats, with sizes ranging from 850 sqft to 2,170 sqft.

“We demand audit by the comptroller and auditor general appointed by the Ministry of housing and urban affairs; immediate removal of office-bearers of the society; completion of the project as per schedule, and handing over the units to buyers; formation of the apartment owners’ association to stop corruption in this project,” said Brij Mohan Saxena, retired deputy secretary, Ministry of finance.

Buyers questioned why the scheme, launched in the name of providing affordable housing facilities to Central government employees, would include villas for ₹1.6 crore.

“How can a government employee buy a villa for ₹1.6 crore and why is the society doing it for profit as the scheme is meant as no-profit, no-loss initiative,” added Saxena.

They alleged that the society office-bearers have obtained the permission to construct villas wrongly and launched a second phase, which was not there in the original plan.

“We got the map for the second phase, in which villas are proposed, approved after consent from homebuyers, as per rules. The project is managed by a project monitoring committee appointed by the members. The project got delayed only because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the pandemic, the Uttar Pradesh real estate regulatory authority gave us an extension and allowed completion of units by May 2022. All allegations made by buyers are untrue and we will hand over possession before May,” said Gagan, director, CGEWHO.