Less than a lakh applicants so far for DDA scheme

With just three working days to go for the Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) housing scheme 2014 to close, less than one lakh applications has been received by the land development agency till Saturday.

With just three working days to go for the Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA) housing scheme 2014 to close, less than one lakh applications has been received by the land development agency till Saturday.

The housing scheme 2014, with 25,034 flats on offer, is DDA’s biggest scheme till date but with the figures that have emerged till now, it might go down as the scheme that got the poorest response.

In the 2010 housing scheme of DDA, about 16,000 flats were on offer and the number of applications that came was 7.4 lakh. For the latest scheme, while the number of flats is much more, the number of applications received till the last working day was just 92,000. Unless there is an unprecedented rush for filing forms in the last three working days beginning Tuesday, it seems unlikely the response this time would be anywhere near the 2010 scheme figures.

“We have sold more than 16 lakh forms through our office counters and bank branches and we expect a large number of these to be filled and submitted but the response till now has been very poor,” said a senior DDA official who didn’t wish to be named.

“It appears that speculators and people who want to get a DDA flat only for investment purposes are keeping away from applying as most people do not want to park their money for five years,” said the official.

Another reason could be the availability of very few three bedroom and even two bedroom flats in the scheme. Though the total number of flats is the biggest offered by DDA ever, the lion’s share of it — 22,627 —consists of one bedroom flats. Number of three bedroom flats is just 21 and that of two bedroom flats is 561. Officials say this is perhaps the reason why the middle class flat aspirant is not showing much interest in the housing scheme.