BDD chawl redevelopment kicks off

Mumbai: With chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Saturday launching one of India’s biggest redevelopment projects, that of the century-old Bombay Development Directorate (BDD) chawls, decks for generating housing stock of 16,000 affordable homes have been cleared. The redevelopment of BDD chawls spread across Lower Parel, Naigaon and Worli will not only rehabilitate 15,000-odd tenants but also generate housing stock of 16,000 units in the city.

This is crucial for the affordable home segment market of the city, at a time when the state housing authority Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) is facing problems to come out with the annual lottery of affordable homes.

S.S. Zende, chief executive officer, Mhada, which is the nodal agency for redevelopment of BDD chawls, said, “The redevelopment spread across around 92 acres is one of the biggest redevelopment projects that would be undertaken in Indian history and it will create housing stock of around 16,000 affordable homes in the city.”

Mr Zende further said, “While Mhada will sell these 16,000 affordable homes via lottery, the maximum of (such) homes are under the lower income group (LIG) and economically weaker section (EWS) category. We also have a few hundreds of units that would be sold under the middle income group (MIG) and the higher income group (HIG) to balance (the ratio of the distribution of housing under different sections). The redevelopment project would be like a mini township and will have all the required facilities like school, bank and hospital inside the residential complex.”

The Mhada has, of late, been facing issues over holding the annual lottery for selling affordable homes due to shortage of land in the city. In 2016, Mhada had to delay its yearly lottery for the city to August instead of May due to the state housing authority being unsure over the number of units available for sale.

 The 2017 lottery has a mere 604 homes to sell via lottery this year as compared to 972 homes in 2016 — a dip of almost of 40 per cent. Meanwhile, Mhada has also been claiming that in the near future around 4,500 homes would be made available for the yearly lottery in Goregaon.