State Housing Authority of Maharashtra has diverts its focus towards affordable housing in Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR). The authority has identified 386 hectares government vacant land in Mumbai for constructing low-cost houses.
According to the officials the 386 hectare land is available in 23 plots in Mumbai and on this land Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (MHADA) can capable to build 1.5 lakh low-cost homes in the next upcoming year. The plots for constructing low-cost houses are identified in such areas like Bhiwandi, Kalyan, Panvel, Pen, Thane, Vasai, Virar and Palghar.
Chief Executive Officer and Vice President of MHADA, SS Zende said that “We have personally surveyed all the plots and sent a proposal to the state revenue department. If the 60 percent area of the land will be approved by the government then we would roll out with the stock of affordable housing in MMR”.
Mumbai is rolling towards modern development while it has losing the stream of affordable housing. A large area of housing board is available in Mumbai and most of land is covered by housing colonies. According to the source 1,500 hectares is covered by 105 housing colonies of housing board.
Chief Officer of MHADA Konkan Board, Vijay Lahane supervises the housing development works in the districts of Thane, Palghar, Raigad, Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg. He said that “Now, greenfield development in Mumbai is over. The only chance of creating affordable housing in Mumbai is through the redevelopment of MHADA’s existing colonies. There is a great demand for housing closer to Mumbai, so we have decided to concentrate on building low-cost houses in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region”.
He also added that the authority in their survey had identified 55 vacant government plots in Mumbai Metropolitan Region out of which only 23 are appropriate for housing development.
Lahane further said that “We discarded those plots which were located in hilly areas, were not easily accessible or had problems in basic infrastructure services such as water supply, sewerage and so on. If the government agrees to hand over this land to MHADA, we will mostly focus on building houses for the economically weaker sections and lower-income groups”.
According to the source 50 percent housing units could be available for Economical Weaker Sections and 30 percent for Lower Income Group and the remaining 20 percent for Middle Income Group of the society.
MHADA has working to make the approval from the state revenue department to hand over the plots to them. MHADA has requested the department to hand over the plots at a nominal fee instead of government’s usual policy of allotment so that the houses would be available at low cost for EWS, LIG.