MHADA affordable housing gets lowest takers since 2009

With the applications for Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA)'s annual lottery for affordable homes closing on Tuesday, the authority received its lowest response since 2009. Only 64,364 people registered with the authority for the 819 MHADA homes that are up for sale in this year's lottery. For last year's MHADA lottery, of the 910 homes, nearly 2 lakh people had registered for the lottery.

The total number of applications for which earnest money has been received by MHADA was 50,730 till 8:30 pm on Tuesday. The lottery is scheduled to be held on November 10, at Bandra's Rangsharda auditorium. Experts claim the reason behind the low turnout is the high price quoted for MHADA flats this year, especially at a time when the overall real estate market is in a slump. In the previous year, MHADA had received nearly 1.35 lakh applications with earnest money deposited by the applicants. This year, that figure, too, is very low, and sources in MHADA claim it will barely cross 50,000.

Sensing lower interest this year, MHADA had even given an extension of two days for registering with them, and even for filing applications with the authority. While officially, the extension was because of a long bank holiday, sources in MHADA said that the extension was because of lack of response.

In 2015, the number of applications was 1.25 lakh for 1,063 flats, while the same in 2014 was 93,103 applications for 2,641 flats. The applications in 2013 for 1,244 homes was 87,647, and 1.38 lakh applications were received for 2,593 flats in 2012. The highest application received was in 2009, when for 3,863 homes, MHADA received nearly 4.30 lakh applications.

According to experts, the pricing of MHADA homes is the main reason why people have stayed away this year. Dr Sanjay Chaturvedi, executive editor, Accommodation Times, said, "MHADA is selling at par with private developers. The flats in Lower Parel and Powai are priced at the same as that of the market rate. Why would any common man wish to spend so much money in MHADA homes, where they won't even get amenities."

The prices for MHADA flats in Lower Parel range from Rs 1.92 crore to 1.45 crore, while flats in Powai are priced at Rs 1.39 crore. This was the first time when MHADA homes were so expensive. Chaturvedi also claims that the overall real estate market is down and hence people aren't coming forward to buy even MHADA homes. Asked about the drop in interest, Milind Mhaiskar, Vice President and CEO of MHADA, said, "So many registrations for 800 odd houses is a large number. A ratio more than 80:1 is not reasonable."

According to MHADA sources, another reason for the low turnout this year could be the fewer number of homes for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in the lottery. There are only 8 homes in the EWS category, which is the biggest target audience for MHADA homes.

Of the total 819 homes, 338 homes are for the High Income Group, while 281 for the Middle Income Group. For the Lower Income Group, there are just 192, and the lowest are eight homes for the Economically Weaker Section. The MHADA flats are located in areas like Lower Parel, Powai, Sion-Pratiksha Nagar, Kandivali-Charkop, Vikhroli-Kannamwar Nagar, among other areas in Mumbai.

Subhash Lakhe, Chief Officer, Mumbai Board, MHADA said, "The total number of applications are more than 77,000, I am hopeful that those who haven't paid the money will pay and the figure will go up as there's still two days to pay the money. Also, last year only for EWS and LIG the total applications received was 1.25 lakh, this year the number of EWS homes are less but we have received good response even for HIG homes. This also shows that our prices are not high and people have accepted us."