No permanent allotment of flats under CM’s quota: State

Government and semi-government employees will no longer be eligible for permanent allotment of flats under the discretionary quota available to the Maharashtra chief minister.

Government and semi-government employees will no longer be eligible for permanent allotment of flats under the discretionary quota available to the Maharashtra chief minister.

HT Image

The state government has announced a new policy governing the allotment of flats available under the CM’s discretionary quota.

On Monday, government pleader Dhairyasheel Nalawade informed the Bombay high court that the new policy has been duly approved by the Cabinet and notified in the Government Gazette on November 30, 2011.

Although 50% of the flats available under the discretionary quota have been earmarked for government employees and employees of semi-government bodies, no permanent allotment would be made in their favour, Nalawade clarified. The flats would be allotted to them only as service quarters, to be occupied during their service tenure, he added.

The remaining 50 per cent will go to various other categories – award-winning journalists, families of martyrs from the police and armed forces, and members of the Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council.

Another important change in the new policy is that persons who have already got a flat under the CM’s discretionary anywhere across Maharashtra will not be eligible for another allotment under the quota.

The new policy was framed after the high court restrained the state government from allotting any flats from the CM’s discretionary quota after finding that there were no norms governing the allotment.

The directive had come following a petition filed by Dr T C Kaushik, a Central government employee, who approached the high court after he found that a flat allotted to him at Versova in Andheri was handed over to somebody else.

The principal secretary, housing department, had allotted Kaushik a flat in Excellence Co-operative Housing Society at Versova in September 2005 and shortly after receiving the allotment letter he had furnished all requisite documents.

However, after he did not receive possession of the flat, he inquired in October 2009 only to find that the flat had been allotted to another person, D N Mapuskar, a former registrar of the high court, in June 2006.