Private builders a major hindrance

MUMBAI: Having burnt its fingers by roping in errant private developers to create affordable housing, the state’s housing authority now has a stern message for city builders. Mhada plans to initiate stringent action against contractors who are sitting on projects under the SRA schemes. “Owing to their failure in complying with the prescribed time-frame and quality norms, they will be blacklisted immediately,” says a Mhada official.

Mhada vice-president and CEO T Chandrashekhar had issued instructions to contractors after the Borivali building collapse, asking them to cough up the money paid as compensation to the families of the victims.

The two contractors and the developer of the SRA transit camp in Borivali, which caved in on December 14, 2007, killing five people and injuring 20, were arrested, but then the case took a back seat.

Mhada’s experience with private builders has been bad, says an official of Mhada. The organisation gave nearly 150 slum pockets to private developers, but it did not get anything in return, not even the premium. The builders either sold those schemes to higher-income people or sub-contracted them, defeating the purpose of affordable housing.

Another bureaucrat welcomes the idea mooted by Chandrashekhar to build one lakh tenements through 120 SRA schemes on Mhada land. But he has doubts about the expertise and capacity of Mhada’s engineers to get the job done through contractors.

 Mhada is currently in the process of drafting eligibility criteria for builders. It is also contemplating the appointment of project management consultants to supervise the quality and safety of work. But the final decision rests with the state government, which recently did not entertain Chandrashekhar’s scheme to build one lakh tenements. Mhada currently has no strong land bank left with it after it dolled out 450 acres of land to private builders.

Another 300 acres are still occupied by slums.

Laxmi Bhagat, a resident  of the Mhada colony in Kurla, is unhappy about the poor quality of construction. She feels that Mhada should come up with innovative and affordable schemes instead of muddling in stereotypical work of land distribution and reconstruction.

Mohan Deshmukh, president of the Maharashtra Chamber of Housing, says Mhada has only a few good officers. He says Mhada could not become more self-reliant and professional in its approach and hence lost its image in the market.