Poor turnout forces DDA to extend housing scheme till June 10

A DDA official said that banks, which are processing the housing applications this time, too had requested for an extension.

The Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has extended its housing scheme till June 10 following poor response from prospective buyers. The deadline for this year’s scheme was May 12.

A view of DDA flats at Narela in New Delhi. (HT File)

According to senior DDA officials, the land owning agency received nearly 20,000 applications for 18,000 flats that where were put on sale after a gap of over a year. “We were expecting close to 50,000 applications at least,” he said.

The official added that banks, which are processing the housing applications this time, too had requested for an extension.

“A lot of banks couldn’t give loans to people to apply for the scheme due to administrative reasons. We had got several requests from banks to extend the date. This could be one reason why we have got such a low response,” said a senior DDA official, requesting anonymity citing model code of conduct.

This is the first time that the entire process was made online and all applications were processed through banks.

“Now that the scheme has been extended, we are hoping a good response. We have set up facility centres to assist people in filling applications online and other financial transactions,” said a DDA official.

Of the 18,000 flats, 16,900 are located in Narela and remaining in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj. A majority of these flats — 16,000 units — are in the Low Income Group (LIG) and the 450 High Income Group (HIG) flats in Vasant Kunj.

After the failure of two successive housing schemes in 2014 and 2017, the DDA, which announced the scheme in March, had relaxed norms to ensure good response from the public. The land-owning agency had done away with a major clause which earlier had prohibited lakh of Delhiites from applying in the scheme. “Now, people who own a DDA flat can also apply, but their flat size has to be up to 67 square metres. We have also scrapped the five-year lock in period, except for EWS category,” said the official.