Boosted by the success of its lottery draw on Tuesday, the Mumbai Housing and Area Development Board (MHADB) has announced that the next edition of the lottery will have more tenements.
On Tuesday, the MHADB conducted a lottery draw for 3,449 homes for which it had received 3,28,043 applications. Therefore, the possibility of a single applicant in the lottery has a 1.09 per cent probability of success. In all, 5,02,730 forms were sold. However, the website of the housing board was very sluggish with applicants rushing to check whether they struck gold in the lottery draw, and there were a number of complaints about the portal hanging frequently.
“Applicants who have not won a home in the lottery today will be given back their deposited amounts within 48 hours. This will be done via the Electronic Clearing System for only those applicants who have filed their bank account details. The rest will get it by post or courier,” said Mr Gautam Chatterjee, vice-president of the Mumbai Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada). “Currently, a number of MHADB projects are under construction at various locations in Mumbai. We are planning to sell 4,000 to 4,500 homes for the lottery next year. As of now, the tentative date for the lottery is around May or June 2011,” said Mr Amarjeet Manhas, chairman, Mumbai Board. As there is a very high demand for houses in the lower income groups, next year’s lottery will see many more homes for this group being put up. Incidentally, the MHADB gets Rs 1.65 lakhs as subsidy from the Central government for constructing homes for the Economically Weaker Section of the society. The housing board officials are working towards a tie-up with service providers, and from next year, applicants will be able to view the results of the lottery draw by SMS from next year.
The MHADB has sent a proposal to the state government asking for permission to increase the income bracket for its four income groups. Currently, the eligibility with regard to monthly income for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) is up to Rs 8,000, and the MHADB’s proposal is to increase it to Rs 12,000. Similarly in the case of the Low Income Group (LIG), the MHADB wants to increase it from the current slab of Rs 8,001-Rs 12,000 to Rs 12,001-Rs 20,000.
For the Middle Income Group (MIG), the MHADB proposes to raise the slab to Rs 20,001-Rs 25,000 from the present Rs 12,001-Rs 20,000. Finally, the proposal includes, for the High Income Group, the MHADB wants to keep the figure
at over Rs 25,001 as compared to the current one of over Rs 20,001.