Mhada identifies land for 1.1 lakh EWS homes

The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) has set the ball rolling on construction of 1.1 lakh homes for Economically Weaker Section (EWS) under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region. The housing authority has identified around 450 hectares land for construction in the MMR.

“We have sent the proposal to the state revenue department as the land is government land and the same will be given to Mhada after cabinet approval. The land identified is mostly in Thane, Ambernath and Boisar, where we have identified a total of 23 land parcels and plans are to build houses measuring 30 square metre (322 square feet) or less, for which the cost will be around Rs 10 lakh,” said S.S. Zende, chief executive officer, Mhada.

Under the PMAY scheme, each home buyer will get a housing subsidy of up to Rs 2.5 lakh for which, the Centre will contribute Rs 1.5 lakh and the state Rs 1 lakh and the condition for it will be that the house does not measure more than 322 square feet, and the home buyer is a first-time buyer whose monthly family income is not more than Rs 25,000.

Mhada officials said it would take the housing authority 10 years to meet the target of 1.1 lakh homes in MMR and the logic behind selecting MMR is that there is no space in Mumbai and most of the construction is of the “redevelopment” kind.

Mhada also plans to rope in private developers and communities and NGOs to come forward and give proposals for constructing homes under PMAY.

In exchange, Mhada’s condition is that private developers will have to construct at least 35 per cent of the homes under EWS of the total construction, and the remaining 65 per cent, they can sell as per their own terms and conditions.