Bid for 6,000 Mhada flats

Homebuyers can rejoice as the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) will put up 6,000 low-cost houses for sale from May.

Homebuyers can rejoice as the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) will put up 6,000 low-cost houses for sale from May.

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These low-cost flats would be available in places such as Sion, Andheri, Chembur, Borivli, Versova and Goregaon.

The forms for the houses will be distributed from the second week of February, while the lottery would be held in May.

Amarjit Singh Manhas, chairman, Mhada Mumbai board, said this would be one of the biggest home stocks in recent years. “There has been a tremendous demand for our low-cost houses, especially now when people cannot afford to buy from private builders,” he said.

In the past three years, there have been 8.28 lakh applicants for 8,182 low-cost flats put out the market by Mhada.

The flats will be 225 sq ft and 800 sq ft for the economically weaker section and the high-income group respectively. A house would cost between Rs 4.5 lakh and Rs 56 lakh, depending on the location and income of the applicant.

Mhada officials said 1,700 more apartments could be added to the list if three current projects at places such as Aram Nagar in Andheri and Siddharth Nagar in Goregaon are included.

For the first time, Mhada will introduce online filing of application forms and bookings for under-construction flats.

The development authority has approved the software provided by Mastek, an IT firm, to conduct the lottery. Tata Consultancy Services will undertake the technical audit and quality assurance. The cost to undertake this IT exercise is slated to be around Rs 2.70 crore.

According to experts, these houses will attract a lot of homebuyers. “You cannot get these rates in the entire Mumbai region,” said Pranab Datta, vice-chairman and managing director, Knight Frank India Limited, a real estate consultancy firm.

Prakkash Nichanii, CEO, Anchor Properties, said the move would impact the current realty market and would force builders to reduce their prices.