Mhada used only 21 per cent of Rs 4,669 crore budget

The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority (Mhada) has used only 21 per cent of its 2015-16 financial budget so far. Of the Rs 4,669 crore budget, it has utilised only Rs 1,000 crore approximately till March 22, 2016, admitted Mhada officials.

“We could spend around Rs 1,000 crore overall and out of that too around Rs 200 crore was spent on the administrative work of the Mhada, which also includes salaries of employees. There are various reasons behind Mhada not being able to efficiently utilise the funds and one reason has to be the slowdown in the real estate sector. The other is when we plan to implement projects by acquiring land, we have to face many hurdles from clearances for rehabilitating landowners who give up their land for construction,” said a senior Mhada official.

In the financial budget of 2015-16 Mhada set Rs 755 crore for the construction of 3,000 affordable homes in Konkan and Mumbai.

“We have not spent even 10 per cent out of the Rs 755 crore, as the state government was supposed to make land available for the Mhada, which has not happened. Land of around 400 hectares is mainly in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and we still are awaiting approvals from the land department of various urban local bodies of the MMR region,” the Mhada official added.

Apart from it, Mhada had allocated Rs 25 crore under the Prime Minister’s housing scheme, which also has not been touched due to the state government, and is still finalising how the newly launched Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY) would be implemented in different parts of the state. However, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis launched the first ever-housing scheme under PMAY in Solapur on Saturday. The Mhada, in its upcoming budget of 2016-17, will allocate Rs 2,500 crore for the construction of 2,500 affordable homes, which will also include homes under the PMAY.

An official from the accounts department, on the condition of anonymity, said, “Most of the expenditure is usually in the last three months of the financial year. However, this year there was not much expenditure in these three months too.” Another reason for Mhada not spending much on construction of houses could be because the state economic survey indicating that it had constructed merely 772 units from April 2015 to December 2015, which is its worst record in the last five years.