Exactly a week from today, on Tuesday, May 19, the long wait for lakhs of house hunters across Mumbai who have applied for subsidised housing through the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority’s (Mhada) lottery system will finally be over. The process will begin at 9 am and will conclude by 7 pm.
According to Mhada officials, out of the approximately 4.35 lakh applications received for the 3,863 tenements, about 5,300 have been rejected during the scrutiny process. “Those applications which did not bear a valid scheme code or did not have the applicant’s signature, where the applicant being a minor, the deposit amount was not attached, and repeat applications in the same category, have been rejected by the authority. The list of valid applications has been uploaded at the Mhada website,” a senior Mhada official said. He also added the deposit of rejected applications is being refunded.
The lottery will take place in Rangsharada Auditorium in Bandra (W). Applicants who wish to witness the lottery will get free passes this Friday, May 15, on first-come-first-serve basis between 11-2 pm at the Mhada headquarters in Bandra (E). The authority has decided to give passes of different colours for the four sessions to prevent confusion. Since the seating capacity of the auditorium is only about 600, Mhada will also make arrangements to display the results on LCD screens outside.
The authority has appointed an oversight committee which includes two senior government officials and a senior professor of IIT, Mumbai. Former deputy lokayukt RC Ayyar, state IT department secretary Ajay Pandey and Dr Deepak Pathak, chair professor, IIT, will monitor the lottery process. The applications will be shuffled on the evening of May 18 in presence of the oversight committee and the data machinery will be sealed.
