Lucky few jubilant after lottery results

Sixty-nine year-old Kashiram Kadam achieved a long-cherished dream on Wednesday after he was allotted an apartment in the Konkan Board lottery of the Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) after more than two decades of effort. The board has declared results for its 4,275 homes in Virar, Mira Road, Thane and Vengurla in Sindhurg district.

“It is like a dream come true today for me. I have been applying for the lottery continuously for 21 years and was successful after my 22nd attempt,” said Kadam, who has been resides in a Parel chawl since childhood.

Mr Kadam, who has been allotted a house in the Economical Weaker Section (EWS) category where 2,465 EWS apartments were for up for grabs and for which Mhada had received 25,835 applications — a demand ratio bigger than 1:10. “I will finally own a house in a tower and I plan to transfer the flat in my daughter’s name who can use it after my death. But the only difficulty is that in 22 years property rates have increased a lot and the only hurdle that I need to overcome is to arrange for Rs 22 lakh which is the total cost of my 322 square-foot apartment,” said Mr Kadam.

The registrations for the 4,275 apartments started in the second week of January, for which Mhada received around 1.34 lakh applications. The results for the same were announced at Rang Sharda auditorium at Bandra (W) and applicants can also check their results on the official website of Mhada.

Another apartment winner, Santosh Kamble (27) who works as an accountant in a construction firm said, “At my workplace I hear conversations related to buying land and selling apartments. Today, after trying for three years, I won a flat in the EWS category in Mira Road. I can think of getting married now”.

The prices of the homes in EWG segment are from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 10 lakh depending on the area. For the Low Income Group segment, the price of a house is Rs 22 lakh, for the Middle Income Group segment it is Rs 40 lakh and for the High Income Group segment the cost is Rs 28 lakh.