Applying for low-cost homes to get easier
The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has planned to introduce a series of measures to ensure that you don't have to stand in queues and sweat it out in the sun when the next housing lottery is announced, reports Naresh Kamath.
Buying a low cost home in Mumbai just got simpler.
The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) has planned to introduce a series of measures to ensure that you don't have to stand in queues and sweat it out in the sun when the next housing lottery is announced.
The steps include dedicated call centres to address the queries of the applicants and more form distribution and collection centres.
MHADA will throw open 3,770 low cost homes for citizens and the process will begin in the last week of December.
Krishna Hedge, Congress legislator and MHADA board member said that the plan was to mitigate problems faced by the applicants. “Applicants have a lot of queries and thousands of applications get rejected due to incomplete forms. The call centre will guide the applicants,” said Hegde.
MHADA will also increase the number of form collection centres from 25 to 40. A fully filled sample form will also be attached to the application booklet to guide applicants on how to fill the form.
The housing agency has also made it compulsory for all applicants to specify their bank account number so that the deposit amount paid by unsuccessful applicants is directly credited to their account within 48 hours of the draw.
The last lottery saw an overwhelming response with 4.34 lakh applicants for 3,683 flats up for sale.
Buyers have expressed satisfaction over these measures but want MHADA to construct more houses.
“The guide will definitely help as filling the form is a tedious process,” said Sunil Jain, a Parel resident who is planning to apply. “It would be better if they appoint private parties to help us directly.”