Buyers can’t sell flat for 10 years: Mhada

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) is all set to come up with a new rule that prohibits buyers of its flats from selling their houses for 10 years. Mhada, which announces a lottery for houses periodically, will take this decision in an upcoming meeting.

Currently, homebuyers from Mhada’s lottery can sell homes five years after the purchase.

Mhada’s Mumbai board chairman, Madhu Chavan, has prepared a proposal, which states that a winner of Mhada lottery cannot sell his or her home for the next 10 years after gaining possession. “Everyone dreams of owning a home. It was found that lottery winners sell their homes for merely a few lakhs, which is why I have proposed an increase in the time limit for sale of houses,” said Mr Chavan.

According to Mhada sources,  the proposal will get a positive nod from all the members of the authority. This decision will help to weaken the brokers’ racket.

On Sunday, Mhada announced the lottery result for 217 homes from Mumbai region. Nearly 70,000 people applied for the lottery and 66,500 applicants paid the application fees.

Mhada president Uday Samant said the Mumbai, Nashik, Aurangabad, Pune lottery received a huge response this year. Next week, the result for Pune and Aurangabad lottery will be declared.

The webcasting of the Mumbai lottery results announcement has also received a good response from the viewers. Till now 17,845 users viewed the webcast from 26 countries all across the globe.

‘Tweak PMAY rules to build cheap homes for poor’

It would be possible to build affordable homes for the poor under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) scheme in Mumbai if certain rules are changed, Mhada president Uday Samant said on Sunday. The official has written a letter to chief minister Devendra Fadnavis apprising him of the matter.

Mr Samant said, "So far, the PMAY could not be implemented in Mumbai due to the space crunch in the city. However, it could be done if the rules of the PMAY scheme were changed for the MMR (Mumbai Metropolitan Region).” According to him, Mhada also wants to build homes under the PMAY.

Mr Samant, who was talking to mediapersons at the Mhada office in Bandra, said, “The PMAY’s rules and regulations are quite tough for builders, otherwise a few builders have shown interest in building houses under the PMAY. Because of a few clauses, the implementation of the PMAY through a public-private partnership is not possible.”

One such clause states that the homes built under the scheme should be within 1 to 4 km from the boundary of a municipal corporation’s boundary. He said that if this clause were removed, a huge amount of land would be available for development under the PMAY.

“A developer has shown interest in building homes at Khopoli. He has 135 acres of land out of which he is ready to develop a 100 acres under the PMAY scheme,” said Mr Samant. He mentioned that if the rules were changed, affordable houses under PMAY would begin in the MMR region. Following this, homes under the PMAY scheme would be developed at Khopoli, Vasai, Virar, Thane and Palghar, which would help  poor to buy their own homes.