In order to increase the participation of people applying for Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) lottery in future, the authority is planning to introduce steps where buyers would be able to apply for four schemes by paying one earnest money deposit (EMD).
Uday Samant the president of MHADA said that in the future lotteries they are planning to have four major options to increase the participation of the public in the lottery. This year till now MHADA has already received above 1.34 lakh applications for 1,384 homes located in various areas of Mumbai.
"We have four plans to discuss in the future authority meeting where, we will be discussing, the options. It includes allowing an applicant to fill four forms on one EMD, having a same amount of EMD for all the four categories, charging a non-refundable form fee and no EMD and lastly increasing the waiting list," said Samant.
Increasing the waiting list would mean that more people would come forward and apply as the chances of getting the house will increase. MHADA right now has the policy of having one winner and one applicant in the wait list for every home. The plan is to increase the number of waitlists. Having the same EMD for all the four categories comprising of EWS, LIG, MIG and HIG would mean the present EMD that ranges between Rs 15,000-75,000 will be common for all categories.
Meanwhile, apart from the way to increase the response, for the lottery, MHADA also is attempting to be more transparent. For example, any of the applicants will be able to see the lottery website and the process live from morning till the lottery gets over on December 16, the day on which lottery will be held.
A senior official from the IT department of MHADA to show how transparent MHADA is said, "CDs containing the date of the lottery are kept in a locked room under protection. All the software codes are certified by IIT Bombay and several other steps. Even the computer that is used for the lottery on the day of the lottery is completely blank. The process starts after a feeding of random numbers selected by a committee comprising of experts and common people who are applicants in the lottery."
THE IMPACT
- This year till now MHADA has already received above 1.34 lakh applications for 1,384 homes located in various areas of Mumbai
- The present EMD that ranges between Rs 15,000-75,000 will be common for all categories
