The common man’s dream of affordable housing in Mumbai has been jolted. The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) has decided to defer its plans of holding the second lottery for low-cost houses. Blame it on the impending water shortage.
The Mhada was hoping to come out with the second lot of houses — it had planned to release 4,000 flats more in the market — in December. But, five months after the first lottery was held, only 47 of the 3,863 winners have been issued letters till date.
The allotment of these 47 houses too has been stayed by the Bombay high court following a petition challenging the “lack of transparency” of the software used in the first lottery on October 6.
While the formalities of flat allotment have contributed to the time warp, a senior Mhada official said that the delay was largely to be blamed on the housing authorities’ inability to provide secure water supply connections for the newly-built colonies.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is yet to approve water connections for the housings in Oshiwara, Sahakar Nagar in Chembur, and Shailendra Nagar, Dahisar.
Over 888 affordable houses for the high-income group have been allotted in Oshiwara. The other two locations have houses for all economic categories. Each of these locations would require over 2 lakh litres of water daily once people start living there.
Due to the water crunch, the BMC has issued a policy guideline, which bars connections any housing project needing more than 2 lakh litre a day till 2012 — the year the Middle Vaitarna project is due to be completed. Mhada has been requesting the BMC hydraulic department to treat its projects as special cases, but the BMC is yet to oblige.
“There is no point in calling lotteries and issuing allotment letters till these problems are sorted out,” the Mhada official said. Permissions for water connections for the first lot of flats are likely to be issued by the BMC after Diwali. A senior hydraulic department official said that the department had decided to supply water just enough to meet the minimum requirement of these colonies.
